By Rebecca Goodman
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Sister Jean Angela

DELHI TWP. - In the wee hours of the morning, Sister of Charity of Cincinnati Jean Angela Noppenberger used to rock and sing to three babies at once at the former St. Joseph Infant and Maternity Home (now St. Joseph Home).

She was a night-shift nurse in the home's nursery and a pragmatic one. She used to carry a pocketful of tools while making nursing rounds at a hospital in Pueblo, Colo. They proved handy for making on-the-spot repairs to things such as loose doorknobs.

Sister Jean Angela, former nursing supervisor at Good Samaritan Hospital and president of the National Association of Certified Duncan Teachers, died Tuesday at Mother Margaret Hall nursing home in Delhi Township.

She was a Sister of Charity for 53 of her 77 years.

Born Mary Jean Noppenberger in Cincinnati in 1926, she and her younger sister, Ruth Ann, now Sister Joseph Ellen Noppenberger, entered the Sisters of Charity on the same day. They took their religious vows together and remained close.

"Sisters would like to sit with Sister Jean Angela at meals because she always had so many funny stories to tell," Sister Joseph Ellen said. "That was one of her assets. She had a great spirituality, but also a great sense of humor. I guess it came from our Irish side of the family."

Sister Jean Angela was also a woman of many talents. A skilled and resourceful nurse, she could also swing a hammer and make ceramic objects. In fact, she was a certified Duncan teacher of ceramics and managed the Village Ceramic Studio in Blue Ash from 1981 to 1992.

While working as a nurse at St. Joseph, she discovered that the high school there had a kiln. So she took ceramics classes and began teaching the craft to the girls at the school.

She became a certified Duncan teacher in 1972. (Duncan Enterprises, one of the largest ceramics manufacturers in the world, offers an education program.) The next year she became a charter member of the National Association of Certified Duncan Teachers.

The association presented her the Cleo Curtis Award in Ceramics in 1992.

Sister Jean Angela was a graduate of St. Ursula Academy in Walnut Hills and a U.S. Cadet Nurse at Good Samaritan. She held a bachelor's degree in nursing from the College of Mount St. Joseph and was a nursing supervisor at hospitals in Colorado and New Mexico throughout the 1950s and early 1960s.

After working as a nursing supervisor at Good Samaritan for three years, she went to St. Joseph Home in 1966. She moved to Mount St. Joseph Motherhouse in 1992 and taught ceramics to the sisters until moving into Mother Margaret Hall nursing home in 2000.

In addition to her sister, Joseph Ellen, survivors include: another sister, Elizabeth Singler of Madeira; and a brother, John Noppenberger of Reading.

Visitation is 9-10 a.m. today in the Heritage Room at the Sisters of Charity Motherhouse, 5900 Delhi Road in Delhi Township. Mass of Christian burial follows at 10 a.m. in the Immaculate Conception Chapel at the Motherhouse. Burial will be in the Motherhouse cemetery.

Memorials: Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati Retirement Fund, 5900 Delhi Road, Mount St. Joseph, OH 45051.

E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com

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