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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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