Sister Madeline Studer, SSND, 87, who served in disabilities ministry in the Davenport Diocese in the 1980s, died Aug. 25 at Mayo Clinic Health System, Mankato, Minn.
Her funeral Mass was held Aug. 30 in Good Counsel Chapel, Mankato.
Born in 1926 near Tony, Wis., she and her family moved to a farm near Wesley, Iowa. She entered the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Mankato in 1945 and professed first vows in 1948. She taught and administered in Catholic elementary schools in Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota. In 1974 she began a ministry to the disabled, especially the deaf, serving in the Davenport Diocese from 1984-88. She worked for the integration into parish life of persons with any type of disability and implemented the “Faith and Light” program in several parishes. Proficient in sign language, she often acted as an interpreter in various situations.
