Swartzendruber, Maude B. Egli, daughter of Christian and Emma (Grimm) Egli, was born at Hopedale, Ill., Oct. 8, 1903; died at Kalona, Iowa, Nov. 26, 1990; aged 87. In March 1927 she was married to John Swartzendruber, who died Dec. 10, 1928.
In January of 1929 she enrolled in the Winter Bible Term at Hesston College, Kansas. She continued at Hesston until she received her high school diploma in 1931. The next three years were spent out "where the West begins" in study and work at the Mennonite School of Nursing at La Junta, Colorado, receiving her R.N. in 1934. A scholarship enabled her to attend Colorado State College of Education at Greeley, 1935-36. The next year at Goshen College gave her a B.S. degree in education. Her interest in the work of Christian nurse led her back to La Junta in the fall of 1937 where she taught the nursing sciences for one year. The following five years she taught and supervised in the surgical nursing division of the hospital. She was Director of Mennonite School of Nursing Service at the Sanitarium in La Junta, Colorado, from 1943 to 1956 when the nursing program was discontinued at La Junta. In 1957 - 1963 she was Director of Education at the Mennonite Hospital of Nursing in Bloomington, Illinois. 1963 - 1966 she was Director of Nursing at the new Huerfano County Medical Center in Walsenburg, Colo. 1967- 1972 she served as college nurse at Hesston College. She had a concern for the School of Nursing at Dhamtari, India, where several La Junta alumnae have served. In 1972 she retired to Schowalter Villa in Hesston, Kansas, where she completed her history of nursing in La Junta.
Surviving are 2 sisters (Ida Egli and Elsie Litwiller) and 4 brothers (Stanley, Emery, Jesse, and Joe Egli). She was a member of Hesston Mennonite Church. Funeral services were held at Manson Mennonite Church on Nov. 29, in charge of Curt Kuhns; interment in Rose Hill Cemetery.
She wrote: Swartzendruber, Maude. The Lamp in the West. LaJunta Mennonite School of Nursing Alumnae Association, 1975, 362 pp.
(Mennobits - Photos: Alumnae News 1991; Nightingale Yearbook, La Junta.)