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Riepp, Benedicta (Sybilla) (1825-1862) First Superior of Benedictine Women in the United StatesMother Benedicta Riepp, O.S.B. pioneered the Pennsylvania wilderness to establish a community of religious women and educate young girls in the Benedictine tradition. Her initial community became the motherhouse to 47 daughter monasteries in the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Asia.Mother Benedicta was born Sybilla Riepp on June 28, 1825, in Waal, the Swabian province of the kingdom of Bavaria. Riepp entered the ancient convent of Saint Walburga in Eichstatt, Bavaria on June 7, 1844 at the age 19. By July 9, 1846, Riepp had made her first profession of vows. She entered solemn vows in 1849 and that same year she was appointed novice mistress. By the time she had turned 27, Riepp had been chosen to lead the abbey’s first foreign mission. Riepp and two to other sisters, Walburga Dietrich and Maura Flieger, were charged with the task of establishing a community in America. The women arrived in New York on July 4, 1852. Father Boniface Wimmer, founder of the first male Benedictine order in the United States, was to meet the sisters, but he never arrived. The nuns arrived at Wimmer’s community of Saint Vincent in Beatty, Pennsylvania four days later and were thus escorted to the town of St. Mary’s, Pennsylvania. Here they opened a school and within a year 60-70 girls had enrolled. By 1855, Riepp’s monastery had expanded from three sisters to forty. The community expanded geographically as Riepp founded new communities in Erie, Pennsylvania, Newark, New Jersey, and St. Cloud, Minnesota. Riepp died of tuberculosis on March 15, 1862 at St. Cloud. Although Riepp’s life was short, the impact she had was great. At the time of her death she had established seven independent Benedictine communities. Her great determination allowed for the proliferation of Benedictine women’s communities in the United States. Lauren M. LamendolaFurther ReadingBurns, James Aloysius. The Growth and Development of the Catholic School System in the United States. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1912.Neuhofer, M. Dorothy. In the Benedictine Tradition: The Origins and Early Development of Two College Libraries. Lanham: University Press of America, 1999.Girgen, M. Incarnata. Behind the Beginning: Benedictine Women in America. Saint Joseph: Saint Benedict's Convent, 1981.“Mother Benedicta Riepp,” Saint Benedict’s Monastery on the Web. Available at (downloaded June 4, 2010).Oetgen, Jerome. An American Abbot: Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., 1809-1887. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1997.Oetgen, Jerome. Boniface Wimmer: Letters of an American Abbot. Latrobe: Saint Vincent Archabbey Publications, 2008Oetgen, Jerome. Mission to America: A History of Saint Vincent Archabbey, the First Benedictine Monastery in the United States. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2000.Rippinger, Joel. The Benedictine Order in the United States: an Interpretive History. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1990.The Catholic Church in the United States of America, Vol. II, The Communities of Religious Women. New York: The Catholic Editing Company, edten, Benet. The Motley Crew: Monastic Lives. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2007.Walker, Mary Edwards (1832-1919) Civil War Surgeon Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, a Civil War surgeon and women’s rights advocate, is the only woman to ever be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. She spent four years on the battlefield during the war, then spent the rest of her life advocating for dress reform and women’s suffrage.Walker was born in Oswego, New York on November 26, 1832 to Alvah and Vesta Whitcomb Walker. The Walkers believed that all daughters ought to receive a professional education. Walker enrolled in Syracuse Medical School where she graduated in 1855 at the age of 23. At the outbreak of the war, she volunteered her medical services in Washington where she worked as a nurse in a makeshift hospital. Unable to obtain a salaried position in Washington, she volunteered as a surgeon in Virginia. In 1864, she was finally appointed a civilian contract surgeon for the 52nd Ohio Volunteer regiment. During the course of her service, she was captured as a prisoner of war in Richmond, Virginia. Upon her release on August 12, 1864, she accepted another position as an Acting Assistant Surgeon in Louisville, Tennessee’s Women’s Prison Hospital.After the war, Walker was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for her services to the Union. However, in 1917, the Medal of Honor Board chose to award only veterans who had served in actual combat with the enemy. Since, she had only served as a medical practitioner, Walker’s medal was revoked. She died on February 21, 1919 and was buried in Oswego. Walker’s Medal of Honor was restored on June 10, 1977 through a decision by the Army Board of Corrections.Walker is remembered as the sole woman to ever receive the Medal of Honor. She distinguished herself as a forward thinking through her career and her efforts to advance women through suffrage and dress reform.Lauren M. LamendolaFurther ReadingFitzgerald, Stephanie. Mary Walker: Civil War Surgeon and Feminist. Mankato: Compass Point Books, 2009. Goldsmith, Bonnie. Dr. Mary Edwards Walker: Civil War Surgeon and Medal of Honor Recipient. Edina: ABDO Publishing Co., 2010.Leonard, Elizabeth. Yankee Women: Gender Battles in the Civil War. New York: Norton & Company, Inc., 1997.Walker, Dale. Mary Edwards Walker: Above and Beyond. New York: Tom Doherty Association, LLC, 2005.Walker, Mary. Unmasked, or The Science of Immortality. Jersey City, 1888. ................
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