HONG KONG (SE): Maryknoll Sister Barbara Ann Walenty died on October 24 at the Maryknoll Sisters Centre in Maryknoll, New York, the United States of America. She was 90-years-old and had been a sister for 61 years.
 
Born in Detroit, Michigan on 26 May 1928, with four brothers and two sisters, Sister Walenty attended Providence Hospital School of Nursing in Detroit, Michigan, becoming a registered nurse. She then worked at the Detroit Memorial Hospital for two years and at Highland Park Hospital for three years.
 
She entered the Maryknoll Sisters Novitiate in Valley Park, Missouri, on 30 December. She received the religious name, Sister Rose Barbara, and made her First Profession on 22 August 1959 and her made Final Profession on 22 August 1965 in Hong Kong.
 
After her First Profession, Sister Walenty was assigned to the Queen of the World Hospital, Kansas City, where she worked as operating room supervisor until 1963 when she was assigned to Hong Kong.
 
She studied Cantonese and worked at Our Lady of Maryknoll Hospital, Wong Tai Sin until 1972. 
 
In 1973, she returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Centre in New York and worked in the Supportive Services Department before joining the Maryknoll Sisters Eastern United States Region in 1974. She was first assigned to Boston’s Chinatown where she taught English as a second language and worked at the Chinatown Clinic and Tufts Medical Centre from 1974 to 1975.
 
From 1976 to 1978, she lived in Transfiguration Parish, in New York’s Chinatown and worked in the Cabrini Hospital Nursing Home and Maryknoll Centre Health Services. In 1979, she was assigned to St. Theresa School in Chicago’s Chinatown, where she served as school nurse, teachers aid and taught Alcohol & Drug Education until 1986. That same year she returned to Hamtramck, Michigan, to care for her elderly parents.
 
From 1995 to 1997, Sister Walenty worked in the Maryknoll Sisters Development Departments Mid-West Education/Promotion Office. In 1999, she returned to Chicago to retire and volunteered as a part-time teacher with children at St. Theresa’s School. 
 
In 2008, she moved to Fraser, Michigan, and continued to volunteer doing family ministry and pastoral work.  
 
In 2014, Sister Walenty returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Centre, where she remained until her death.