Sister Anne Marie Kiley
Current Ministry Location: Maryknoll Sisters Center-Maryknoll, NY
Sister Anne Marie was born in Newark, NJ on July 4th, 1931 to Marie Kiley and Leo Kiley; she had 2 sisters and 1 brother. Sister Anne Marie attended primary school in Queens, NY, Bishop McDonnell Memorial High School, Brooklyn and two years at Adelphi College, Garden City, NY. She was president and on the Board of Governors of the Newman Club Alumni of L.I.
After working eight years in the advertising department of Newsday, Sister Anne Marie entered the Congregation at the Maryknoll Sisters Center, Maryknoll, NY from West Hempstead, L.I on September 2nd, 1960. Sister Anne Marie pronounced First Vows at the Sisters Center June 24th, 1963 and Final Vows June 24th, 1959 in Bolivia.
In 1966, she received a B.S. in Education from Mary Rogers College. Then shewas assigned to Bolivia where she studied language in Cochabamba, Bolivia for six months followed by a year as a primary teacher in Cobija. Returning to Cochabamba, she taught in the Santa Ana Parish primary school and was supervisor of the religious program. In Mineros, about two miles north of Santa Cruz, she did rural pastoral work, catechist training, and collaboration with health personnel.
For nine years she worked with a mission team in Capinota with the Quechua indigenous people. This is where the Sisters took eight hour trips on horseback up steep slopes high above the 8,500 foot altitude of the valley. In one visit the people told the missioners that no church people had visited the town as long as those living there could remember, except a priest who flew in and left on the plane the same day. This ministry required Sister Anne Marie to study the Quechua language for a period of six months.
She joked about her next ministry which she expected to be semi-rural on the outskirts of the town of Santa Cruz. A year later urbanization hit and the land was divided into about eight thousand building lots! Again she was involved in pastoral visits and animating lay pastoral leadership.
In 2001, she was in Riberalta, Beni in the southern zone of the parish where there are four chapels, each with its own leaders, programs for liturgy and catechetic, she saw her role as accompanying these leaders. In addition, she also visited all the people in their homes.
In 2012, Sister Anne Marie retired at the Sisters Center, Maryknoll, NY.