She was a shining example of a Christian life lived heroically in the constant practice of the commandment of love

Sister Teresa, born Maria Olga Tambelli, was born January 17, 1884 in Revere (Mantua), into a wealthy family of the professional bourgeoisie.

In 1903 she asked to join the Daughters of Charity of San Vincenzo de Paoli, in Turin.

In September 1907 she was assigned to Cagliari, to the Marina-Stampace Asylum. The meekness of her character and her charitable impulse immediately won her universal sympathies.

In 1941 she opened a secondary school. Above all, she inherited the love for the many poor children who in Cagliari at the time, were abandoned and forced to sleep wrapped in rags under the arcades of Via Roma, or lying on the benches in the public garden, at the bottom of a boat in the docks of the harbor or in the atrium of a building.

They were Sister Nicoli’s Marianellis, whom Sister Tambelli also took care of with the patience and affection of a mother, gathering them in their hovels, dressing them, feeding them, and trying to ensure them a minimum of religious and civil education.

During the Second World War, after the first bombings of Cagliari in February 1943, she opened the Navy Asylum to the displaced until she herself and the other Sisters were forced to take refuge in Uras. Subsequently, together with the population of Cagliari reduced to poverty, she shared the hardships and very serious difficulties of the material and moral reconstruction of the city, which the bombs had almost completely destroyed.

Overwhelmed by fatigue, her heart suddenly stopped beating on February 23, 1964

Source: https://www.loquis.com/en/loquis/1463575/Teresa+Tambelli