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Mary B. (Spies) Sully, 82

Mary B. (Spies) Sully, age 82, of Fort Calhoun, died April 29, 2015, in Omaha. She was born September 15, 1932, in Emmetsburg, Iowa.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Louis B. Sully; parents, Charles J. Spies and Isabel C. Flavan; and siblings: Ann Minell, Jane Johnston, Isabel Hart, Charles Spies Jr. and Robert Spies.

She is survived by her sons: Tom (Deb) Sully, New Brighton, Minn., Tim (Wendy) Sully and Lou (Sheila) Sully, both of Omaha; daughters: Mary (Edgard) Luque, Glendale, Ariz., Patty Wilderman, Celeste (Chris) Feuerbach and Anna (Paul) Sparwasser, all of Omaha; sister, Elisabeth (Mike) Finnegan, Iowa City, Iowa; close family friend, Dave Barnum; and numerous adoring grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 5-8 p.m. Friday, May 1, 2015, with Rosary Service at 7 p.m. at St. Francis Borgia Catholic Church, Blair, NE.

Mass of the Resurrection will be at 10:00 am Saturday, May 2, 2015, also at St. Francis Borgia Catholic Church, Blair.

Interment will be at Holy Cross Cemetery, Blair.

Memorials are suggested to Siena Francis House or Visiting Nurse Association Hospice.

Sievers-Sprick Funeral Home of Fort Calhoun handled arrangements.

#2 Omaha World Herald 30 April 2015

Sully, Mary B. (Spies) Sep 15, 1932 - Apr 29, 2015 Age 82 of Fort Calhoun, NE. Proceeded in death by husband, Louis B . Sully; siblings, Anne Minell, Jane Johnston, Isabel Hart, Charles Spies Jr., Robert Spies. Survived by sons, Tom (Deb) Sully of New Brighton, MN, Tim (Wendy) Sully, Lou (Sheila) Sully, both of Omaha; daughters, Mary (Edgard) Luque of Glendale. AR, Patty Wilderman, Celeste (Chris) Feuerbach, Anna (Paul) Sparwasser, Omaha; brothers, John Spies of Emmetsburg, IA, Tom (Betty) Spies, Okoboji, IA; sister Elisabeth (Mike) Finnegan, Iowa city, IA; close family friend Dave Barnum; numerous adoring grandchildren. WAKE SERVICES 5-8pm Friday, May 1, 2015 with ROSARY SERVICE at 7pm at St. Francis Borgia Catholic Church, Blair, NE. MASS OF THE RESURRECTION 10am Saturday, May 2, 2015 at St. Francis Borgia. Interment Holly Cross Cemetery, Blair NE. Memorials suggested to Sienna Francis House or Visiting Nurse Association Hospice, SIEVERS-SPRICK Ft. Calhoun, NE 402-468-5678

#3 Enterprise 8 May 2015

Sully remembered for connecting, justice

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Sully remembered for connecting, justice by Tammy Bain

Yes, she could meet one August night to talk about DeSoto, the unincorporated town between Blair and Fort Calhoun. No, she wouldn’t be asleep.

But Mary Sully answered the knock at her door after dark with a sharp knife in hand. Hours of conversation later, she passed along a photo of her entire family and offered a jar of “jelly jam.”

Sully, who collapsed in her farmhouse last week and died early the next morning of complications from colitis, was remembered for her no-nonsense approach, dry humor and unending community involvement.

Sully was born Mary Spies, a tomboy who entered the convent while in college. There, she led cribbage games and once chased bats out of the cafeteria while other nuns ducked, “as if she were leading the wave,” her daughter, “little” Mary Sully de Luque, said in her eulogy.

When the mother superior felt that Sully wasn’t meant for the convent, a heartbroken Sully enrolled at Creighton University. She later taught English, and after tiring of dating guys who wouldn’t last, she banded with friends to create a Catholic singles group. There, she met Louie, her daughters said one recent afternoon. Louie and Mary were married for nearly 50 years.

Louie’s DeSoto farm was a culture shock to Mary. But she made it her own and raised seven children, later “adopting” an eighth.

Sully’s life reached outside of the farm. She served on the Blair school board for more than 20 years. She was a substitute teacher, PTA mom and marching band sponsor.

Sully didn’t always see eye-to-eye with the board. But she always did what she believed was right.

One former educator remembered when, while making budget cuts, the board decided to cut janitorial staff’s overtime. Sully “really went to bat” for the staff, her daughters said. The staff would work the same hours regardless, she said. It wasn’t fair to cut their pay.

“A strong sense of justice,” said Sister Liz Sully, Sully’s sister-in-law.

That sense of justice guided Sully’s life. The family put items to donate on a stair landing in their home. Sully volunteered at the Auxiliary Closet rummage sale and enlisted seven helpers.

In any given break in conversation, Sully’s daughters would pipe up with, “Oh that’s another thing Mom did.”

They passed out pamphlets to promote Metropolitan Community College and its satellite campuses, where, already obtaining a double-master’s degree, Sully took woodworking and sewing. She helped sponsor a Vietnamese refugee family. She performed comedic roles in both Blair Community Theatre and community theater through St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Fort Calhoun.

Sully also had a quick wit and dry, “twisted” sense of humor, her daughters said. A devoted Democrat, she’d comment that the Democrats of Washington County would hold meetings “around my kitchen table,” as that’s about how many she alluded there were. Once at an auction, she bought a couple of items, then bought a step stool, climbed on it and bought some more.

“What’s that you’re standing on?” one crowd member shouted to her.

“My reputation,” she said.

One daughter asked Sully once how she raised all seven children.

“I just loved whichever one needed it the most,” Sully said.

Her children grew up and had their own children. Louie died 10 years ago of a heart attack, in the same room Mary was later found. She’d sold the livestock, but kept the big parties every fall, with hayrack rides around the property. Attendees measured their height and signed their names on her kitchen wall.

“Louie’s in charge of the weather,” she’d say.

She called bingo after lunch at Pioneer Friends, a monthly potluck at Saint John the Baptist Church to create community for elderly residents. As residents revived Blair Community Theatre, Sully jumped in again.

“She was just reviving her very funny roles that she played,” Sully de Luque said.

“Just ham it up,” Sully’s daughter, Celeste Feuerbach said.

She traveled frequently to watch her 23 grandchildren’s activities, once flying the entire family to Arizona to see her grandson Devon Luque’s first communion and confirmation.

Sully’s children didn’t just witness her service and faith. Their stories often turned theatrical and humorous while discussing Sully. The seven children each remain Catholic, involved in a plethora of charities among them: trips to the Dominican Republic; summer camps for pediatric cancer patients; working at Siena Francis House in Omaha; and volunteering at soup kitchens, thrift stores and Central American orphanages. Anna Sully Sparwasser helps a church organization sponsor a refugee family.

And as Sully’s children took on their own service, she never stopped helping. Recently, she bought furniture for the refugee family Sully Sparwasser’s church sponsors. For another friend she met from her children, who suffers from brain cancer, she paid for the friend’s house to be routinely cleaned.

She was a “great connector,” Liz Sully said.

The family wants to hold that large party this fall, and think they’ll just enjoy the family farm. But nothing is certain, and right now, everything is day by day.

As one granddaughter prepares to graduate high school, it will be hard, Sully’s daughter, Patty Sully Wilderman, said.

“But she’s right here,” she said.

#4 Omaha World Herald 4 May 2015, Columnist Erin Grace

(Photo) (Caption – Mary Sully. Her loving and supportive nature prompted family friend Virginia McGill to call her “Ma to the masses”.

Goodbye to the Ma who bore kindness that can’t be measured

Just about everybody called Mary Sully ‘Ma’.

She was nurturing, yes, and loving and supportive and proud of your accomplishments. And not just with her seven children.

She had a way of making a stranger feel like part of her big clan, whether it was remembering mundane details of your life or scribbling your name—and height!—on her “measuring” wall at home. Her door was always open. Her time was always yours.

“She was Ma to the masses”, said longtime family friend Virginia McGill, who was folded into the Sully clan decades ago when, as a Creighton University freshman from Arkansas, she spent school breaks at the Sully farm in Fort Calhoun.

This is why Mary Sully’s sudden death last week resonated across Omaha and the communities of Fort Calhoun and Blair. Even the former head of Creighton, facing death himself with terminal cancer, took a moment to remember Ma Sully.

“I have always enjoyed being with her,” the Rev. John Schiegel wrote from Milwaukee to Mary’s son, Tim. “She left quite a legacy at Creighton. But most of all she left a profound footprint on the souls of the people she met and related to.”

Ma was born Mary Spies, one of nine children in Emmetsburg, Iowa. She joined the Franciscans after graduating from high school, intending to be a nun.

But she was in near-constant pain from a back injury she suffered as a teenager and left the convent, finishing her education at Creighton. She graduated with a degree in English and began her teaching career at Omaha Mercy High.

She met a Fort Calhoun farmer named Lou Sully and the pair hit it off so well that Mary would later tell her kids about the time when Lou asked her to accompany him to the stockyards in South Omaha.

Mary followed Lou down the manure-covered ramps, soiling her saddle shoes and bobby socks.

She thought: I don’t know what I’m doing here.

“All I know,” she’d say, recalling that day, “is that I love that man.”

They were married nearly 50 years.

They lived at first in the tiny “home place” that Lou’s Irish ancestors had built sometime around the 1860s. The 80-acre farm was not a money-maker and times were tight. One Christmas, Mary wrapped boxes of Kleenex and other household goods to give the kids more to open. Eventually, Lou took a job with Mutual of Omaha.

The Sullys built a new house on the property. All seven Sully children graduated from college, six from Creighton.

Lou died in 2005. Mary remained living at the family farm. She kept the big fall parties going: gigantic chili feds that featured hayrack rides and a bonfire. Tim would drive his dad’s old tractor. Mary would throw open the metal shed doors. People would plug in Crock-Pots and set up folding chairs. And kids would run wild, hopped up on lemonade, s’mores and country air.

Without fail, Ma would make everyone there feel like family. She was a connector, asking strangers an initial question – “Which parish are you from?”—and then connecting the Catholic dots.

Ma tracked all the relationships on the wall at home on which is written some 1,000 names of visitors, along with a mark for their height and the date.

Ma was on the Blair Community School Board for 20 years, was involved with the Blair Community Theater and served on the DeSoto Township Board. She was a regular lector at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Fort Calhoun and the main greeter at St. John’s fish fries during Lent.

She also was present where needed—seeing service as a natural reflection of her faith.

“It’s what we do”, she would say.

For example, when Mary Beth Hunt of Blair was at her wits’ end with a precocious 4-year-old and a relentlessly colicky newborn, Ma stepped in to help.

“She stopped by my house and folded my laundry and encouraged me,” Hunt said on Facebook.

Ma’s health seemed decent enough, though Tim said that she suffered from colitis. Her sister in Iowa has terminal cancer, and Tim had arranged for a friend to fly Mary to Iowa City last month.

Mary hopped aboard the four-seater on April 25, a Saturday, and got to see her sister. But she wasn’t feeling well and called the pilot on Monday for an earlier-than-planned return.

When daughter Patty came to the house on Tuesday, she found her mother on the floor and called 911. She was severely dehydrated, and her kidneys had shut down.

The five Sully children who live in town gathered at their mother’s bedside at Immanuel Hospital Tuesday evening. They sang. They prayed. They watched a priest give their mother the sacrament of last rites.

She died early Wednesday. Her funeral was Saturday in Blair.

In addition to Tim and Patty, both of Omaha, Mary is survived by sons Tom of Minnesota and Lou of Omaha and daughters Mary of Arizona and Celeste and Anna, both of Omaha. She is survived by 23 grandchildren, five siblings and one of her children’s friends, Dave Barnum, who lived with the Sullys for many years.

And she is survived by a lot of the names on that hallway wall on the Sully farm.

Ma Sully will live on in the memories of her many “children.”

#5 Funeral Leaflet

Mass of the Resurrection

Mary Brislin (Spies) Sully

September 15, 1932 ~ April 29, 2015

Processional “Here I am Lord” #777; Homily: Fr. John Montag, SJ. Offertory: “Be Not Afraid” #683; Communion: “One Bread, One Body”#932; “I Am The Bread of Life” #945; “Blest Are They” #735. Reflection: Mary F. Sully de Luque. Closing Song: “On Eagle’s Wings” #691. Celebrant: Fr. John Montag, SJ

Pallbearers: Dan Hunt, Pat Laverty, Joe Miller, Neil Pille, Peter Hart, Daniel Minell

Honorary Pallbearers: Wayne Dein, Dick Kruse, Mike Sutton, Ron Hineline, Roland Smith Jr, Jack Laverty, Rick Sully, Dr. Tom Taverone, Max Snowdon.

Lectors: Drew Wilderman, Devin Luque, Eamon Sully

Prayers of the Faithful: Izzy Wilderman, Alex Wilderman, Colleen Sully, Ryan Cristine Sully, Lou Sully, Anna Sully

Musicians: Clare Cowing and Brenda Hoover

Offertory Gifts: The Grandchildren of Louis & Mary Sully

Memorials to Siena/Francis House Homeless Shelter 1702 Nicholas Street Omaha, NE 68102; Visiting Nurse Association Hospice 1941 South 42nd Street, Suite 225, Omaha, NE 68015, or Memorial Masses

~~~Obituaries and funeral leaflet courtesy of Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings and leaflets on file in the Blair Public Library at Blair, Nebraska~~~

FindaGrave #145806697