Blessed Mother Teresa's niece shares stories of famed nun's youth

Published: 2007-10-10

LATROBE, Pa. (CNS) -- Blessed Mother Teresa's niece told an audience at St. Vincent College in Latrobe Oct. 6 that she remembers her father, Lazar, telling stories about growing up with the older sister who would become the famous nun. "He was the only boy in the family and he was very naughty," said Agi Bojaxhiu of Italy. "Mother Teresa tried to protect him when he got in trouble." Their mother, who raised the family alone after her husband died, was very strict, according to Bojaxhiu. "Sometimes when she punished Lazar by sending him to bed without dinner, his doting sister would save half of her food and smuggle it to him," she said. "She would do his homework for him, too." Mother Teresa, the founder of the Missionaries of Charity, was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu into an ethnic Albanian family in Skopje, in present-day Macedonia. She died in 1997 and was beatified in 2003. Her niece was one of four relatives and friends who shared stories about her at an evening panel discussion during an Oct. 5-7 conference titled "Remembrances of Mother Teresa of Calcutta by Her Family and Friends."

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