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Anna Maria Kentenich
nee Blatzheim, 8 December 1818 – 29 January 1909
Anna Maria Kentenich was the eldest daughter of Edmund Blatzheim (1795 – 8 January 1840), a linen weaver, and Sibilla, nee Wolff.
She married Matthias Kentenich from Gymnich on 20 April 1844 and with him founded a large family. Their first daughter, baptized Sibilla after her grandmother, was born on 7 August 1844, hence shortly after the marriage. Other children followed: Margaretha (20 June 1847 – 13 December 1880), Anna Franziska (5 March 1849 – 28 October 1931), Stephan (6 November 1851 – 12 November 1851), Hermann (23 September 1852 – ?? 1853), Peter Joseph (11 April 1856 – 24 November 1945), (Bernhard 5 November 1860 – ?? 1860), Katharina (18 July 1863–27 March 1939).
Anna Maria seems to have been a very generous woman who gave others a great deal. She is described as a quiet, gentle, religious woman. Anna Maria saw to the religious education of her children. She prayed with them and we are told that she regularly asked them the catechism questions in the morning. At night she blessed the house with holy water.
One characteristic seems to have been her devotion to Mary. There was a statue of Mary in the Kentenich household, and the children were led to give her many gifts. So they also hung the memento of their First Communion around the statue’s neck as a sign of their dedication to her. What Katharina Kentenich later did in Oberhausen when she brought her son there was something she had experienced with her own mother.
Anna Maria died shortly after her daughter Sibilla on 29 January 1909, so she was not present at the ordination of her grandson to the priesthood.
