As a young woman,
Laura Montoya Upegui, of Jerico, Colombia, became an elementary schoolteacher to help support her widowed mother. Having developed her spiritual
life through devotion to the
Eucharist and meditation upon the Scriptures,
Laura felt drawn to the religious
life of the
Discalced Carmelites. Yet her
zeal also instilled in her a longing for an active, missionary apostolate, particularly to assist the Indian peoples of South America.
Laura was determined to combat the anti-Indian bigotry in her society, and to give her own
life to the Indians' evangelization. Finally, at the age of forty, having resolved to "become an Indian with the Indians to win them all for Christ,"
Laura journeyed to Dabeiba with four other women to begin a religious congregation devoted to the service of the Indians, the Missionaries of
Mary Immaculate and Saint Catherine of Siena. As mother superior, she imparted to the congregation a rule that combined
contemplation with action. After having spent the last nine years of her
life confined to a wheelchair, Mother
Laura died on October 21, 1949.