Marlene Nieland
Sister Mary Irene, FSPA

Sister M. Irene Nieland is the daughter of Andrew and Caroline (Staiert) Nieland, granddaughter of William and Catherine Grote Nieland, and great granddaughter of Henry and Anna (Köster) Nieland. Marlene Nieland joined the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (FSPA) in August 1957 and took the religious name Sister Mary Irene. She graduated from St. Francis School of Nursing and earned a BS degree in Nursing from University of Northern Colorado in Greeley and an MS in Nursing from the University of Colorado in Denver. She worked in hospitals in Wisconsin, Idaho, and Colorado and also taught nursing. From 1984 to 1995, she worked on the island of Majuro in the Marshall Islands, where she helped establish the School of Nursing and the College of the Marshall Islands. Back in the states, she taught and did clinical nursing. In the summer of 2001, she taught nursing in the African state of Cameroon. In 2002, she moved to Carroll, Iowa, where she currently works as a nurse in the St. Anthony nursing home.

Sister M. Irene is the sister of Ione C Nieland (Chaplain Ione Nieland)

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