Anna Grawe was born in Bartelso, Illinois on February 3, 1892, the second child of her father's second marriage. Baptized on the following day, she received the name of Anna Gesina. An attack of typhoid at the age of nine left Anna with the lifelong handicap of lameness and the discomfort of a very heavy shoe with a thick sole and high heel. However, this did not dampen her spirits nor prevent her from living a very active life.

When an older half-sister, Margaret (later Sister M. Michaele) entered the convent at Clyde, Anna felt convinced that God was calling her to this life too. However, her first application for admission met with an unfavorable response, because of her affliction. But she persevered in knocking, and was received as a postulant on Nov. 1, 1912, and was admitted to the novitiate on July 5, 1913. At her profession on August 5, 1914, she received the name of Sister M. Mildburga, which she retained until Easter, 1969, when she resumed her baptismal name, Ann, coupling it with Mary. She made perpetual vows on March 5, 1921.

For some sixteen years Sister helped with the milking, first at Clyde and later at Chewelah, Washington. At Clyde, this entailed rising daily at 3:20 a.m. and tramping a long distance to the barn, in heat and cold, through mud and snow - no small sacrifice for her. Sister also helped with the sewing. From 1922 to 1928 she was a member of the new foundation at Chewelah, Washington where she helped with the kitchen work, sewing, and milking. From June, 1932 to Sept., 1943 she was a member of our Mundelein community, then returned to Clyde to help in the church goods department. After some years she took over the white sewing and mending - a duty which she performed ably and faithfully for many years.

Sister had a cheerful, joyful disposition and her ready charity made her loved by all. She loved prayer and for years longed to have the Breviary in English so that she might pray with more understanding. When this became a reality she was overjoyed.

Sister had a very active mind and was keenly interested in all kinds of pursuits, such as art work, embroidery, and the study of Scripture and theology. When already in her seventies she joined a class in oil painting by Sister M. Trinitas, and took the course in calligraphy given by Father Norbert, O.S.B. at the convent. She enrolled in some doctrinal correspondence courses from the Knights of Columbus in St. Louis, receiving 100% on her grade. She had just mailed in her homework for the second set of instructions on the Acts of the Apostles, conducted through the Daughters of Isabella, but had not yet received her report, when death brought her life to a sudden close. Sister had learned typing by herself well enough for her personal correspondence and copying things for her notebook.

During her last few years, Sister M. Ann helped part time in the infirmary, happy to be of service wherever she could. A severe, sudden pain in her chest in the evening of March 16, 1972 necessitated her being hospitalized in St. Joseph the following day, where her case was diagnosed as pneumonitis. She responded well to treatments and was apparently on the way to recovery, but cardiac arrest in the early morning of March 24 brought her life to a sudden and unexpected close. Sister had just passed her 80th birthday. Her ever youthful and buoyant spirit drew the remark that "she never really retired from life - she retired TO Life." Closely united in life, the two sisters were also to be closely united in death, as Sister M. Michaele followed her to eternity just a month later.