Nancy Schwichtenberg, the woman who helped 99 terminally ill patients die peacefully in her rural Kasota hospice, died Tuesday after a two-year battle with colon cancer. She was 66.

Schwichtenberg spent nearly all of her working life in the health-care industry. But it was the care with which she ran her hospice since 1991 that made her well known in health-care circles.

Her career began when she worked as a nurse’s aide at a St. Peter hospice. She stayed there for five years before deciding to open a hospice in her own home.

Schwichtenberg viewed hospice care as a personal calling. When patients were near death her presence at their side was constant. At night, she’d sleep on the floor next to their bed so they’d get the attention they needed, and so they wouldn’t die alone.

When the time came time, she’d hold them close and say, “Jesus is here. Take his warm hand and go with him.”

In a 1996 Free Press article about Schwichtenberg’s hospice work, Wendy Allen, whose mother died at Schwichtenberg’s hospice, said her mother’s last days were peaceful.

“(Schwichtenberg) is truly an angel,” Allen told the newspaper. “She has the ability to make death a dignified experience.”

In 2006, Schwichtenberg was diagnosed with cancer. Family and friends rallied, holding at least one benefit to raise money for her mounting medical bills. Among other costs, she’d had surgery to remove her colon and part of her intestine

Family members helped take over the hospice work, including her husband, Roland, who took a leave of absence from his job as a school bus driver and virtually took over for a while.

But Nancy Schwichtenberg never left.

“I’m not going to give up my work,” she said in 2006. “This is not a job for me — this is my life.”