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Sister Blanche M. Thiel, M.M., a chaplain, pastoral worker and dietary researcher, died Aug. 29 at Maryknoll Sisters Home Care III in Ossining. She was 87.
She worked three years as researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health before joining a team of researchers at Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, in 1968. She worked with the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation and Ohio State University’s pediatrics department on a nationwide research program to evaluate the nutritional status of pre-school children in the United States. She visited families to gather data. She was appointed the program’s supervisor in 1969.
In 1970-1971 she was a dietitian supervisor for Letchworth Village, a residence in Thiells for the physically and mentally disabled operated by the New York State Department of Health.
She was a dietitian and cook for the Sisters of St. Anthony’s Convent on Maui. She became director and chaplain of Catholic patients at Queens Medical Center, Honolulu, from 1979 until her retirement in 1992.
Born in Milwaukee, Wis., she entered Maryknoll in 1949 and professed her final vows in 1954. She held a bachelor’s degree in home economics from Marywood College in Scranton, Pa., and studied public health nutrition at the University of Minnesota.
A Funeral Mass was offered Sept. 4 in the Annunciation Chapel at the Maryknoll Center. Burial was in the sisters’ cemetery at Maryknoll.
