Anne Malone
Sister Anne Malone, SNDdeN was born in Boston and grew up in Roslindale. She had two brothers and a sister; her father died when she was seven, and their mother was left to raise the four of them.
“Her faith has been a gift to each of us,” she recalls. “I had a deep connection to the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur through my aunt, Sister Anne Margaret Malone.”
She attended Notre Dame Academy in Roxbury and later Hingham, where she met many SNDdeNs who impressed her with their spirit of community and belief in God’s goodness. “They seemed to like each other and their students,” she recalls.
She entered Notre Dame in 1967 at Ipswich and graduated from Emmanuel College in 1972 with a degree in chemistry and physics/math. “I am a teacher at heart,” she says.
She ministered in high schools in Massachusetts until she went to Kenya in 1983. She worked in secondary schools in Kakamega and Igoji, Meru. St. Mary’s in Igoji was the first school where SNDdeN began their mission in 1965; the chapel was dedicated to Saint Julie Billiart.
“The mother of one of my students asked me if I knew St. Julie. I told her that I did. She said she was her teacher. That “saint” was Sister Julie Adams, SNDdeN. The science equipment had all come from Notre Dame ministries in the USA, and every shelf was labelled. I was given the Meru name, Makena, the one who is always happy, by the grandmother of one of my students. I try and live up to my name.”
In the early 1980s, Notre Dame, Kenya began a formation program and welcomed Kenyan women. “It is clear to me that Saint Julie’s spirit is very much at home in the Kenyan people,” she says. She was involved in vocation promotion and initial formation for six years and a member of the Kenya Unit Leadership Team. “I had a wonderful experience of an international community.”
She returned to the USA in 1996, “though it hardly felt like home. Eventually, I discovered that home is not a place.”
Her ministries have been varied: the African Pastoral Center, Opening Doors Wider in Nursing (ODWIN), the National Planning Team of SNDdeN USA, Laboure College, and the U.S. East-West Leadership Team.
She currently resides in Carmel, California.
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Updated in 2026