Suor Maddalena Inzaghi

Maddalena Inzaghi was born in the province of Milan on the 23^rd of May 1869. She joined the Figlie di Maria Ausiliatrice, and left Genoa with some other nuns from the same order in November 1895 for Mexico, where she entered the religious profession in the capital on the 25^th of May 1898.

She was director in the Salesian community of Chipilo for two terms, from 1925 to 1932 and then again from 1942 to 1944. The town of Chipilo was established by a colony of Venetian migrants who came to the Mexican high plateau in 1882 and developed a dairy industry with a significant economic expansion.

The Figlie di Maria Ausiliatrice were devoted to education, teaching Italian (a language unknown to many Venetian settlers at the time) and Spanish. In 1922 they opened the first real school in Chipilo, after the failure of the previous attempt undertaken with the Dante Alighieri Society in 1916 due to a lack of funds and political unrest. They organised a kindergarten, co-educational primary school, evening school, a pattern cutting and dressmaking workshop, Sunday school and more, reaching many different age groups with education based on Don Bosco's preventive system.

From 1923, with the help of the Italian Consul in Puebla, the Maria Auxiliadora school received subsidies from the government, in particular teaching materials for the Italian language. The school was often visited by the authorities.

During the years of religious persecution, between 1926 and 1929, Sister Maddalena was head of the community. The school in Chipilo was protected by the influence of the Italian government and did not suffer any severe damage. On the contrary, it became a providential asylum for the Figlie di Maria Ausiliatrice, who suffered the closure of other schools. The nuns wore civilian clothes to escape violence and kept their work afloat with the help of former lay students, creating a lasting relationship of collaboration.

When Sister Maddalena left Chipilo in 1933, the school had 183 pupils, plus 51 in the kindergarten. As head of the community, she had promoted the popular Sunday school and youth clubs, as well as the school and workshops for older girls.

She died in Mexico City on the 3^rd of February 1947.

Story collected in collaboration with Congregation Daughters of Mary Help of Christians.