– On February 6, 1909, Mother Maddalena’s younger sister, Mother Alphonsine, died at the Trinità dei Monti convent in Rome.  The Necrology of the Sacred Heart Nuns recounts:
During the last days of her life, God granted Mother Alphonsine a very sweet consolation. Her two Poor Clare sisters had been commissioned by Pius IX to carry to America the austere rule of St. Francis; they had founded a convent at Evansville in Indiana and one of them, Mother Annette, - [Mother Maddalena] - had died there in such an odor of sanctity that the ecclesiastical authority had been moved and had begun the process of information. Mother Alphonsine could not, alas, give any detail about her sister's childhood, since she had spent so little time with her family. [In those days, noble families sent their children to boarding schools at a young age.]  It was from heaven, that she was to follow the phases of a cause she held so much at heart.
In FEBRUARY this good Mother was attacked by a grave pleurisy; alarming symptoms told of an approaching end; therefore, the last sacraments were administered to her. Calm, serene, even joyous, the sick woman joined in our prayers. One of our Mothers having asked if she was happy, she answered, "Paradiso Santo," with an ineffable smile, and her face lighted up with a ray of happiness. "Saturday," she had told the nurse, "I will go to see the Blessed Virgin." In fact, she died on this day consecrated to Mary.