UNTIL RECENTLY, (now late in her tenth decade), lived by herself in a cabin in the picturesque village of El Bolsón, Argentina. She says she fell in love with the southernmost region of the country, known as Patagonia, at first sight. "I put my face to the window of the bus ..." she recalled of her first visit to the area 40 years ago, "and said out loud, 'This is my land.' "
Born in Buenos Aires, but raised largely in Santa Fe, Magdalena says that her family moved to Córdoba when she was fifteen. As an adult, she spent much of her career in academia, first as a high school teacher and later as a professor of literature and philosophy at the University of Córdoba. She published a book in 1945 on the history of Castilian literature. After retirement, Magdalena returned to Santa Fe to seek out her parents' former friends and the children who played with her when she was a girl. There she learned about Christian Science and was instrumental in the growth of Christian Science in Santa Fe, and then in El Boisón.
Today Magdalena still lives in her beloved El Bólson, now in a home for the elderly, where she has regular visitors, many of them Christian Scientists whom she has mentored and befriended through the years. These friends come to read to her, to discuss metaphysics, and to keep her company. One of her longtime friends, Marion Frusteri, says, "I feel like I'm in heaven when Magdalena talks."
