Eight Maryknoll Sisters Celebrate 50th Anniversaries

OSSINING, NY — Eight Maryknoll Sisters celebrated their 50th Golden Jubilees Sunday with a special mass in the Annunciation Chapel at the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining, NY. Their stories are inspiring.

Sister Alice Vandenoever, M.M. was born in Manhattan, NY. She entered the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation in 1968. She earned a B.A. in Chemistry from Hunter College in NY and an M.A. in Physical Chemistry from the City University of NY.

Sister Alice served in the Philippines for over 20 years teaching and working with the poor. When she returned to the states in 1993, she served as a professor in various colleges for years. She currently works in the Mission Awareness Promotion Department at the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining, NY.

Sister Ann Hayden, M.M. was born in Louisville, Kentucky. She entered the Maryknoll Sisters in 1968 and attended Saint Louis University in Missouri, where she earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing. She became a registered nurse in 1972.

She has had a wide and varied career as a Maryknoll Sister serving as a nurse that has taken her to Kentucky,St. Louis, Korea, Sudan and Nicaragua and then back to our Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining, NY.

Currently, she is in Piñatas, Texas in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, serving in pastoral work to fourcommunities at the border of Mexico. Sister Ann also served on the Congregational Leadership Team for six years.

Sister Azucena San Pedro, M.M. also known as “Ceny,” was born in Baguio, Philippines. She entered the Maryknoll Sisters in 1968. Sister Ceny earned her Undergraduate Degree in Chemistry at the University of the Philippines and became a certified teacher of high school physics.

For over 30 years, she served in Africa as a teacher and helped those in need. She opened a center for teenage single mothers in Iringa, Tanzania. She then served for a few years in Hawaii doing social work services and working on a farm teaching students how to harvest food.

Currently, she is on mission in Brazil, where she is working at a Holistic Healing Center for women. There she works with a team of women who are healers and offer many different kinds of therapies, such as hot stone massage, Reiki, Foot Reflexology, etc.

Sister Earnest Chung, M.M. was born in Macao. She earned a B.S. in Elementary Education from Rogers College in Maryknoll, NY and a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the University of Hawaii.

For over 40 years, Sister Earnest has served in Hawaii where she still continues to serve today. Throughout the years, she has served in many roles in Hawaii such as teacher, helping the elderly, administrative assistant, bilingual outreach worker and Executive Director of Catholic Charities Immigration Services and Elderly Services.

She has also served at the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining, NY as manager of the Mission Education Office and Co-Director of the Congregational Personnel Office.

Sister Gloria Tamayo, M.M. was born in Kawit, Cavite, Philippines, Sister Gloria Tamayo grew up in the mountains of Baguio City, where she graduated from St. Louis University.

Assigned to Hawaii in 1969, she spent more than two decades in mission in the Pacific being a Chaplain, teaching, and doing pastoral work. She has also served in Bolivia and the United States doing pastoral work, teaching, and vocation work.

Sister Gloria is currently a member of the Congregational Vocations Team for the Maryknoll Sisters, helping women discern a possible call to religious life.

Sister Madeline Giusto, M.M. entered the Maryknoll Sisters in 1968 from St. Thomas Parish in Reno, NV. She earned a Nursing Degree at Roseland Community School in Chicago, IL.

For 35 years, she has served as a nurse in South Korea and at the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining, NY. She ministered to the poor, the sick and the elderly.

In 2016 she returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Center, she is currently serving at a home for rehabilitation and cares for children who have severe health issues.

Sister Marilu Limgenco, M.M. was born in the Philippines, she entered the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation in 1968.

Sister Marilu's ministry is focused on pastoral care, which she has been doing for over 40 years, helping migrant workers, the elderly and the ill and dying. She has served in the Philippines and Hong Kong. Today, Sister Marilu continues assisting domestic migrant workers as they deal with employment, deployment and violence issues in Hong Kong.

Sister Teruko Ito, M.M. was born in Japan into a Buddhist family. She has three degrees: a B.A. in Mathematics from Maryknoll College in the Philippines, an M.A. in Religious studies from the Maryknoll Seminary in Ossining, NY and an M.A. in Pastoral Counseling from Fordham University in the Bronx, NY.

She has served in the Maryknoll Alcohol Center in the outskirts of Tokyo helping recovering alcoholics, as a teacher in Tanzania, and worked with women and children in need with HIV/AIDS in Guatemala.

Currently, she is serving as one of the Congregation Leadership Members.