Sister Angelina Dutra served Alaska for more than quarter century

CatholicAnchor.org
Sister M. Angelina Dutra, of the Sisters of the Holy Family, died peacefully at the sisters’ motherhouse in Fremont, Calif., on March 30. She was 89. Born in Tracy, Calif., Sister Dutra entered the Sisters of the Holy Family in 1949 at age 22.

She served in parishes and day homes in California until 1954, when she went to Hawaii. She remained there serving in parishes and missions for 22 years before moving to Alaska where she worked in parishes and missions of Sitka until 1983. She then took time to take a clinical pastoral education program.

Returning to Alaska in 1985, Sister Dutra spent the next 20 years in spiritual care in various areas of the Providence Health System in Anchorage. She returned to Oakland in 2006, before coming to her community’s motherhouse in 2007. There she remained an active volunteer until her health required her to slow down in recent months.

Sister Dutra spent most of her active ministry in the mission communities of the Hawaiian islands and in Alaska — both geographically isolated from the contiguous United States. She worked with Native Americans, immigrants, the sick and the elderly to show them the care of a loving community.

A Funeral Mass was celebrated for Sister Dutra on April 7 in the Holy Family Motherhouse in Fremont. Her body was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma.