CatholicSaints.Info

Blessed Ulrika Fransiska Nisch

Blessed Ulrika Fransiska Nisch Also known as

Fransiska Dettenrieder
Ulrica Nisch

8 May

Profile

Oldest of eleven children born to Ulrich Nisch, who cleaned stables, and Klothilde Dettenrieder, a servant in a village inn. The couple was so poor that their families and the local authorities refused to allow their marriage; they forced the issue with the birth of Fransiska. The baby was baptized at the age of one day. Only four Fransiska’s siblings reached adulthood.

Fransiska spent her early childhood in Oberdorf, Germany, raised by her grandmother and maternal aunt, Gertrud Dettenrieder. When she was returned to her parents at age seven, she had so much trouble fitting in that she eventually returned to Oberdorf to live with her aunt and finish school. Known as a pious child, Fransiska early felt a call to religious life, but beginning in 1894 she worked as a maid in serveral homes to support her family. She made her First Communion on 21 April 1895, and was confirmed later that year. In 1898 she worked at a general store and cheese factory in Sauggart, Germany. Worked at a combination bakery, brewer and tavern in Biberach, Germany in 1899. Servant in the house of a teacher in Rorschach, Switzerland in 1901.

In 1903 she began suffering from a severe form of erysipelas in 1903; in hospital she was treated by the Sisters of Charity of Holy Cross, and was so impressed by them that she followed her call to religious vocation by joining the Sisters on 17 October 1904 at the Hegne monastery in Konstanz, Germany, taking the name Ulrika in honour of her father. She spent her few remaining years working in the kitchens of several houses in her Order amd dealing with a series of deep mystical experiences.