Sister Maria Calasanz Ziesche was born on April 29, 1923, in Düren in the Rhineland. She joined the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady in Mühlhausen on the Lower Rhine in 1951, and made her religious profession there on August 12, 1953. After studies at the Pedagogical Academy, she worked as a teacher and head of the boarding house at St. Joseph’s High School in Rheinbach near Bonn until her retirement. Her unforgettable historical novels and other works were written during this period. They feature the great figures of Reichenau: the itinerant Bishop Pirmin (Stab und Quelle), Abbot Berno (Die leeren Hände), and Hermann the Lame (Die letzte Freiheit, which has also been translated into Croatian, Czech, and Slovakian). She died on July 31, 2001, while she was on holiday in Allensbach-Hegne on Lake Geneva. Her secret wish had been to give her life back into the hands of God at Lake Constance, looking out toward the island of Reichenau, and this wish was granted.