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Category: News & Politics
Published on Friday, 18 October 2013 16:10
Antonia Brenner, a Nun who Gave Up her
Beverly Hills Life to Live in a Mexican
Prison, Dies at 86
(DailyMail) -- Mother Antonia became a nun at age 50
and called Tijuana's most notorious prison, La Mesa
Penitentiary, home since 1978. Mary Brenner was
married and divorced twice and had seven children
before she decided to become a nun . Founded a
new order called Eudist Servants of the Eleventh
Hour for older women who want to serve the poor.
Brenner’s lived essentially in a cell, among the
inmates for more than 30 years.
Antonia Brenner, an American nun who was raised in
Beverly Hills and abandoned a life of privilege to live in a
notorious Mexican prison, has died at the age of 86.
Brenner died Thursday at the Tijuana convent of Eudist
Servants of the 11th Hour, which she founded, said Sister
Anne Marie Maxfield.
Brenner had been ill with a weak heart and myasthenia
gravis, a neuromuscular condition.
Brenner first visited La Mesa State Penitentiary in 1965 on
a trip to provide medicine and supplies to hospitals in
Tijuana, just across the U.S. border from San Diego.
She moved into the prison 12 years later when she was 50,
holding individual counseling sessions, leading pep rallies
at the prison church, and doing countless small tasks for
inmates over decades.
Known as 'Prison Angel,' she lived in a cell with a view of
the guard tower. Located at the end of the dark hallway, it
barely had room for a cot, desk and folding chair.
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She moved out in her final years as her health declined but
remained a regular presence at the prison and a beloved
figure among Tijuana's powerful and powerless until she
died.
Brenner was born Mary Clarke in Los Angeles, the second
of three children. Her father made a fortune selling office
supplies to defense contractors during World War II. The
family lived in Beverly Hills and had an 11-bedroom, ocean-
view summer home in Laguna Beach, south of Los
Angeles. Later, she moved to Ventura County, her last
home before the prison. After two failed marriages, Brenner immersed herself in
charity work and was deeply influenced by a Los Angeles
priest named Anthony Brouwers. When she became a nun
in 1977 — 13 years after Brouwers died — she named
herself Sister Antonia in his honor.
Brenner didn't hesitate to intervene in thorny conflicts at the
prison, which is marred by a history of violent clashes,
including one in 2008 that left about two dozen inmates
dead.
'I'm effective in riots because I'm not afraid, I just pray and
walk into it,' she told The Associated Press in 2005. 'A
woman in a white veil walks in, someone they know lovesthem. So silence comes, explanation comes and arms go
down.'
Brenner also counseled and supported prison guards and
police, creating Brazos Abiertos, or Open Arms, a group
that provides financial support and holiday meals to
families of slain Tijuana police officers.
Alberto Licona, Tijuana's deputy police director and
president of Brazos Abiertos, said Brenner founded the
group in 1997 after an inmate confided with her about
killing a police officer and she sought to help the victim's
family.
Her biggest legacy is with the murderers, drug smugglers,
thieves and other convicts at La Mesa. She brought
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Send
bandages, soap and medicine and left with messages to
their loved ones.
In 2007, the city renamed a street for her adjacent to the
prison.
'Even when her health was in decline, she always found
time to attend to them,' Licona said.
Brenner often visited her family in Southern California,
where she would regale her more than 45 grandchildren
and great-grandchildren with stories about her charity work.
'She was a tiny woman with a little fire and a lot of passion,'
Christina Brenner said. 'We called her the Eveready
battery. She wouldn't stop. She was always going.'
She is also survived by her seven children, James,
Kathleen, Theresa, Carol, Tom, Elizabeth and Anthony.
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