Maria Troncatti was born in
Italy in 1883 to poor farming parents. She attended
catechism lessons in her local parish during her childhood and in obedience to her
priest decided to wait until adulthood before requesting to be admitted into the Salesian Sisters. Troncatti joined the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco on 15 October 1905 after having commenced her period of the
novitiate and she later professed her vows on 17 1908 in
Nizza Monferrato. Her father fainted as she left due to the pain of separation. She spent this time in
Varazze in
Liguria. Troncatti suffered a serious infection in 1909 and later contracted
typhoid; this prompted a visit from
Michele Rua who blessed her. In 1915 she passed a special course in nursing and used this education during
World War I as she tended to ill and wounded soldiers - she also worked for the
Red Cross while stationed in Varazze. Troncatti was sent to the missions in
Ecuador on 9 November 1922 for a mission of evangelization to work among the
Shuar tribe in the
Amazon forest; after she established herself there, tribal members dubbed her, “Mamacita". En route to Ecuador, she and her fellow religious boarded a train to
Marseille in
France and spent over two weeks on a boat to
Panama; she then went to
Guayaquil in December and then on to Ecuador. Her first encounter with them threatened her life: the tribal chief's daughter was wounded from a bullet caught in the crossfire between two warring tribes, and she was threatened with death if she could not save the girl; Troncatti operated and saved the girl's life in a move that bought Troncatti the respect and admiration of the natives. She also served in Ecuador as a catechist and nurse. Before she turned 85 in 1968 she penned a letter to her relations back home in Brescia and said that - despite their wishes to reunite with her - her age made travel difficult and she could not leave due to her mission. Troncatti died on 25 August 1969 in a
plane crash in Ecuador. The small plane crashed not long after takeoff on the edge of the forest that she had dubbed the "homeland of the heart". Two other religious were in that plane and managed to survive - the three were en route to
Quito for an annual
spiritual retreat. ==Beatification and canonization==