Anna Maria Tauscher van den Bosch was born on 19^th of June 1855 in Sandow, Brandenburg, (then in Germany, now in Poland), to deeply believing Lutheran parents.

Her father was a pastor of the Evangelical Church. At a certain point, however, dissatisfied with the religion of her father, Anna Maria, entered the Catholic Church. This happened on October 30, 1888, when she made her profession of Tridentine faith at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Cologne. This considered decision caused her, however, numerous humiliations and sufferings, so much so that she was soon expelled from her father's house and dismissed from her position as director of nursing at the psychiatric hospital in Cologne.

Left homeless and without work, abandoned by all, Anna Maria wandered for a long time before arriving at a refuge in a religious institute. Later she worked instead as a lady-in-waiting for a family. It was then that the young woman realized how in the streets of Berlin many children, mostly children of Italians too busy at work to look after their family, were miserably abandoned to themselves. Moved by compassion, she began to take care of them. In order to achieve this arduous goal she decided to found a religious community: the Congregation of the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus. She began her first Work near Berlin, where on July 2^nd 1891 she opened the first house, which she baptized «Home for the homeless» and on 1^st of August began to welcome the first three poor children, as well as gathering around her other companions eager like herself to help the most unfortunate.

Her charity, however, was not limited exclusively to children. Mother Maria Teresa of St. Joseph, this is the name she took in religion, also took care of the elderly, of those who were alone, abandoned, far from the Church, of emigrants, of simple workers who in some way found themselves homeless.

In 1897 she was aggregated to Carmel at the Generalate of the Discalced Carmelites. She founded the first house in Holland in 1898, the first novitiate in Sittard in 1899 and yet another novitiate in Maldon in 1901. Her great devotion to St. Joseph led her to place all the houses of the Work under the protection of the Spouse of Mary.

In 1903 she made her first trip to Rome, and after a few months she went to Cremona to start the activity in favour of poor children, in the house of the Honourable Ettore Sacchi. In 1904 Mother Maria Teresa of Saint Joseph returned to Rome for the third time, to inaugurate the Mother House in Rocca di Papa, opened with the help of Cardinal Francesco Satolli and the Discalced Carmelites. It was precisely on that occasion that her congregation received its definitive name, already mentioned above.

Mother Maria Theresa of St. Joseph finally died on September 20, 1938 near Sittard, Holland.

The beatification ceremony took place on May 13, 2006.