Ita Ford, M.M. was a Roman Catholic Maryknoll Sister

Maryknoll Sisters

The Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic, or simply Maryknoll Sisters, are a group of Roman Catholic women religious founded in the Village of Ossining, Westchester County, New York, in 1912, six months after the 1911 creation of the Maryknoll community of missionary brothers and fathers...

 missionary to Bolivia

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

, Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

 and El Salvador

El Salvador

El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...

. She worked with the poor

Poor

Poor is an adjective related to a state of poverty, low quality or pity.People with the surname Poor:* Charles Henry Poor, a US Navy officer* Charles Lane Poor, an astronomer* Edward Erie Poor, a vice president of the National Park Bank...

 and war refugees. On December 2, 1980, she was tortured, raped, and murdered, along with fellow missionaries Maura Clarke

Maura Clarke

Sister Maura Clarke, M.M., was an American Roman Catholic Maryknoll Sister, who served as a missionary in Nicaragua and El Salvador. She worked with the poor and refugees in Central America from 1959 until her death in 1980...

, M.M., laywoman Jean Donovan

Jean Donovan

Jean Donovan was an American lay missionary who was murdered with three nuns in El Salvador by a military death squad while volunteering to do charity work during the civil war there.-Life:...

, and Dorothy Kazel

Dorothy Kazel

Dorothy Kazel was an American Ursuline nun and missionary to El Salvador. On December 2, 1980, she and fellow missionaries Ita Ford, Jean Donovan and Maura Clarke were raped and murdered by members of the military of El Salvador.-Life and work:Kazel was born Dorthea Lu Kazel to Lithuanian American...

, O.S.U. They were killed in El Salvador

El Salvador

El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...

 by members of a military

Military of El Salvador

The Armed Forces of El Salvador, in Spanish Fuerza Armada de El Salvador is the official name of the combined armed forces of El Salvador...

 death squad

Death squad

A death squad is an armed military, police, insurgent, or terrorist squad that conducts extrajudicial killings, assassinations, and forced disappearances of persons as part of a war, insurgency or terror campaign...

 of the right-wing Salvadoran military-led government.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 23, 1940, Ford was the daughter of William Patrick Ford, an insurance man who took early retirement due to tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

, and Mildred Teresa O'Beirne Ford, a public-school teacher.