Sister Sylvia Kenkel, OSB

Sister Sylvia Kenkel, OSB, 86, a Benedictine sister of Mount St. Scholastica, Atchison, Kan., died Saturday, February 28, 2026, at the monastery. The vigil service will be Thursday, March 5, at 7 p.m. in the monastery chapel, and the Mass of Resurrection will be celebrated there Friday, March 6, at 10:30 a.m. 

On May 24, 1939, she and her twin brother Sylvan were born into a large farming family in Panama, Iowa. There she was taught through high school by Atchison Benedictine sisters. She entered the monastery in 1957, earned her bachelor’s degree in education from Benedictine College and spent her first years in community as a primary teacher in Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska. She then turned to health care and earned her Licensed Practical Nurse certification. For the rest of her years of ministry, she was L.P.N. or charge nurse in the Mount’s long-term care facility, Dooley Center. She was more than a nurse, using her significant artistic talents to teach creative crafts there, attending to the hair care of residents and always being present to them in prayer and listening. With a tender heart for the handicapped and disabled, she had the opportunity to spend four summers as a nurse in El Dorado, Kan., at a camp for persons with cerebral palsy. Later, as a Dooley Center resident herself, she continued to express herself through her art and to be faithful to prayer and community.

Sister Sylvia was preceded in death by her parents William and Anna Eva (Wingert) Kenkel, brothers Father Leonard, Michael and Sylvan Kenkel, sister Lauretta Kenkel, and four other siblings who died at birth. She is survived by brothers Gene (Pat), David, Damian, sisters-in-law Pat and Joyce Kenkel and her monastic family. Arensberg Pruett Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. Memorials may be sent to Mount St. Scholastica or made online at the Mount’s website.

*Watch the Mass of Resurrection

Reflection for the Vigil of Sylvia Kenkel, OSB

by Sister Linda Herndon

On behalf of Sister Mary Elizabeth, our Prioress, and the Mount community, I extend our sympathy to S. Sylvia’s family: her brothers Gene, David, and Damien, her sisters-in-law Pat and Joyce, to her other family, friends, co-workers, her community classmates, and to her faithful companion, S. Rita Claire Judge.

When we recall Sister Sylvia’s life among us, I imagine that most of you, like me, recall her many years as a nurse in Dooley Center. St. Paul in his letter to the Colossians, as we read on her memorial card and heard in the second reading, describes her life perfectly, as one “clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.”  I can just imagine Sylvia blushing to be described in those words. But this truly is who she was.

For years as a nurse, Sylvia took care of our sick and infirm sisters with great care and compassion. Nothing was too insignificant or too unimportant for her to do. She worked the night shift for many, many years because it was often hard to find people to work at that time. When someone called in unable to work, she would readily volunteer to help and take that shift even if she had just worked eight hours, and she never complained. If Sylvia was here to tell her side of the story, I’m sure she would tell us that she simply did her job, doing what needed to be done, doing what God and her community had called her to do.

Sylvia was the hands of the Lord who provided comfort for his people and had compassion on the Lord’s suffering ones. She was at the bedside of many, many of our sisters as they were dying. She was a compassionate, gentle, caring presence and ministered to our sisters in their pain, their struggle, their last breaths. 

Sylvia delighted when she was able to take time off to spend four summers as a nurse at a camp for children and adults with cerebral palsy. It was there that she befriended one of the campers, Beth. That friendship brought much joy to both of them for many years.

We knew Sylvia as a generously creative person. She made countless creative, giant “thank you cards” for us each to sign and then send to someone who had been good to the community. She mended clothes, shorten pants and skirts, repaired household items such as aprons and towels, taking care of whatever the need may be. She generously cut our hair and styled it. She exemplified living Paul’s admonition that “whatever you do, in word or deed do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”  She simply delighted in being able to “help out” when there was a need.

St. Paul tells us to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom.” During the 1970’s and 1980’s Sylvia lived at Marian Hall which was the initial formation living group. Through my years of living there with Sylvia, I came to realize the gift that she provided for us newcomers. She let us know it was okay to have fun, to pull a simple prank on another, to lighten the intensity that comes with learning to live in community. She helped several of us with sewing projects. And, most importantly, by her example, she showed us the value of work, of doing community service for our sisters by her own work as a nurse in Dooley Center through many long nights. Actions speak louder than words, especially when forming newcomers in this monastic way of life.

I imagine there was a great crowd of Mount Benedictine sisters who greeted Sylvia on Saturday morning as she made the transition from life here in on this earth to her new life with God in heaven. For 86 years she had patiently, compassionately, and unobtrusively let her light shine to everyone, 69 of those years here at the Mount. The sisters that were there to let Sylvia know that her light had shown with great comfort and love for them in some of their most challenging days as they lay dying. And now they were there ready to greet her again so that they could, all together, sing to God with joy and thanksgiving. It was that morning, while her Benedictine community was at morning prayer, that Syliva got to hear God speaking directly to her:

“See I have never forgotten you, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.” “Well done, good and faithful servant!  Come, Sylvia, and enjoy life with me forever.”