Sister Maria Hedwigia ND 5148 PDF Download
Renate Kleineidam
Maria Regina Province, Coesfeld / Germany
Date and Place of Birth: July 14, 1938 Grenzeck, Lower Silesia
Date and Place of Profession: August 15, 1959 Coesfeld
Date and Place of Death: September 21, 2025 Coesfeld, Kloster Annenthal
Date and Place of Funeral: September 25, 2025 Coesfeld, Convent Cemetery
Renate Kleineidam was the daughter of saddler Georg Kleineidam and his wife Hedwig, née Staude. She had two brothers. In her biography, she wrote: “When I was six years old, I attended elementary school in my hometown for two months. Then the war came and we were displaced. Our father died in Russia on March 14, 1944. We came to Lorup, in the district of Aschendorf, and there I was enrolled in the Catholic elementary primary and secondary school in 1946.”
After leaving school in 1954, Renate left her parents’ home and came to Damme to work as an assistant in a children’s group at the Antoniusstift. She wrote: “I really enjoyed working in the group and would like to become a Sister of Notre Dame.”
So Renate began her postulancy on October 11, 1956, at Liebfrauenburg in Coesfeld and at her investment she was given the religious name Sister Maria Hedwigia. After her first profession, she took over the leadership of a girls’ group in Ahlen, at St. Michael’s boarding school.
From then on, social education work would shape her career, first in Handorf and then in Büren. In 1961, she joined Vinzenzwerk, Handorf, a social education facility for children and young people. This place remained her workplace for many years, where she devoted all her energy and heart to the children and young people entrusted to her care.
She attended the “Higher Technical College for Social Work” in Dortmund while working and passed her exam as an educator with good results before the examination board in May 1973.
In 1988, Sister M. Hedwigia moved to Büren and worked in our boarding school for ethnic German repatriates. When the boarding school closed, she established a day school there, which she ran until the convent was dissolved in 2016. Here, too, she conscientiously applied her knowledge and experience gained from many years of educational work.
In 2016, Sr. M. Hedwigia moved to Kloster Annenthal in Coesfeld to live in the senior citizens’ center. For a long time, she continued to perform small tasks. Over the years, her health began to decline. She kept in regular contact with her brother Georg, as well as with many of her “children” from Handorf.
She spent only a few weeks in the nursing ward. A violent fall and its consequences left her permanently bedridden. Sr. Maria Hedwigia received competent help from the nursing staff and every support from her fellow sisters. On Sunday morning, before the sisters’ morning prayer, Sister Maria Hedwigia gave her life back into God’s hands. A long religious life was completed in God.
