Sister Sylvia Kenkel, OSB

Sister Sylvia Kenkel, OSB, 86, a Benedictine sister of Mount St. Scholastica, Atchison, Kan., died Saturday, February 28, 2026, at the monastery. The vigil service will be Thursday, March 5, at 7 p.m. in the monastery chapel, and the Mass of Resurrection will be celebrated there Friday, March 6, at 10:30 a.m.

On May 24, 1939, she and her twin brother Sylvan were born into a large farming family in Panama, Iowa. There she was taught through high school by Atchison Benedictine sisters. She entered the monastery in 1957, earned her bachelor’s degree in education from Benedictine College and spent her first years in community as a primary teacher in Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska. She then turned to health care and earned her Licensed Practical Nurse certification. For the rest of her years of ministry, she was L.P.N. or charge nurse in the Mount’s long-term care facility, Dooley Center. She was more than a nurse, using her significant artistic talents to teach creative crafts there, attending to the hair care of residents and always being present to them in prayer and listening. With a tender heart for the handicapped and disabled, she had the opportunity to spend four summers as a nurse in El Dorado, Kan., at a camp for persons with cerebral palsy. Later, as a Dooley Center resident herself, she continued to express herself through her art and to be faithful to prayer and community.

Sister Sylvia was preceded in death by her parents William and Anna Eva (Wingert) Kenkel, brothers Father Leonard, Michael and Sylvan Kenkel, Sister Lauretta Kenkel, and four other siblings who died at birth. She is survived by brothers Gene (Pat), David, Damian, sisters-in-law Pat and Joyce Kenkel and her monastic family. Arensberg Pruett Funeral Home (www.arensbergpruett.com) is in charge of arrangements. Memorials may be sent to Mount St. Scholastica or made online at the Mount’s web site (www.mountosb.org).