Sister Maria Edelgunde ND 4792 PDF Download
Hildegard Hilgefort
Maria Regina Province, Coesfeld, Germany
Date and Place of Birth: April 24, 1931 Bokah, County Cloppenburg
Date and Place of Profession: February 27, 1957 Coesfeld
Date and Place des Death: May 29, 2023 Coesfeld, Kloster Annenthal
Date and Place of Burial: June 6, 2023 Coesfeld, Convent Cemetery
„God, my God, in you I place my trust!“ Ps 25,2
Hildegard Hilgefort was the daughter of the farmer Gustav Hilgefort and his wife Elisabeth. She spent a carefree youth surrounded by her seven siblings.
After completing 8 years of elementary school in Alfhausen, Hildegard helped her aunt in the household as well as in agriculture. In 1949 she came to the children’s home at Gut Vehr for a year to learn cooking and housekeeping with the Sisters of Notre Dame. In her final report she was certified to be an open-minded and studious student. In the years that followed, she became convinced that she was called to religious life, and in 1953 she asked to be accepted into the community.
After completing the novitiate, she worked in the kitchen in Wilhelmshaven from 1957 to 1962. The sisters attested to her “an outstanding natural talent for her profession” as well as a fine manner in dealing with the student cooks. Sr. M. Edelgunde then gained experience in the school kitchen of the Marienhain school for farm women, where the helpfulness “with which she won the affection of the students” stood out. In 1966, she took charge of the kitchen at the Meeresstern children’s spa and hospital in Wangerooge, cooking and baking for 300 people. In 1970 Sr. M. Edelgunde successfully graduated from the technical school for housekeepers of the Sisters of Notre Dame in Geldern. Later she also took further training as an instructor in home economics.
In 1978, Sr. Maria Edelgunde was entrusted with the responsibility of the local superior in Wangerooge. When the German guesthouse “Villa Maria Regina” of the Generalate in Rome lacked a kitchen director, she went back to running a large kitchen for 10 years. During this time she also instructed many German housekeeping apprentices. After her return she took over the service in the kitchen in Meppen. In 1998 she became local superior for the Sisters of the Salus Infirmary in Vechta-Marienhain.
Sr. Maria Edelgunde willingly let herself be employed wherever she was needed. Her great skill in housekeeping, her organisational talent, her readiness to help and her friendliness in dealing with those entrusted to her earned her high esteem.
In the course of the dissolution of our care facility in Vechta-Marienhain, Sister Maria Edelgunde came to Kloster Annenthal in Coesfeld in 2018. She quickly settled in and gratefully and joyfully accepted the help she needed.
God, in whom she trusted throughout her life, and who has prepared the table for so many people, will welcome her to the heavenly wedding feast and give her life in abundance.
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