2000 McCorry Family Christmas Letter

Dear All, Christmas 2000

At this holiday season, I ask you all to remember in your prayers my brother, John, who died suddenly Oct. 17 at 41. As Mullins family members gather in Milwaukee and California to celebrate the holidays together, we are still struggling with his death from a brain aneurysm. I ask you to especially focus your best wishes on his wife, Linda, and their son Casey, 5, who are very dear to us. The death of John, known to many by the nickname “Moon,” was reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “After a lifetime of making people laugh, John ‘Moon’ Mullins has left them crying,” the paper wrote. When a weekly local paper honored a friend and colleague of Moon’s as “Milwaukee’s Best Bartender,” the friend, Bill Castagnozzi, shared the spotlight with Moon, by writing a separate tribute to him as a “loving husband and father, brother and friend.” At the funeral at Immaculate Conception parish in Milwaukee, members of Linda’s Dwyer family launched into a chorus of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” out on the sidewalk as the casket was placed into the hearse. Thanks to all of you who traveled to Milwaukee to be there. Mary Mullins reports Casey’s classmates at IC school had a special mass Dec. 14 for him out of respect for the loss of his dad. Children participated in the service, which was attended by Casey’s mom, grandmother and other relatives. Mary says the priest noted in his sermon that, “Christmas is a time of hope,” and that no matter what burdens you have to bear, “everything is going to be alright because God loves you.”
Other members of the Mullins family were busy with moving plans. I moved in August to San Jose, Calif., to take a job as a reporter at the San Jose Business Journal, a sister paper to the Milwaukee Business Journal, where I worked for nine years. Joe, meanwhile, moved to Sun Prairie, outside Madison, in September to become a food and beverage manager at the Crowne Plaza Hotel there. Eileen moved back to Milwaukee from New York City in February, in time for 40th birthday celebrations with twin Joe.
When not trying to discern the difference between a dimpled chad and a hanging chad in Florida, Betty and Carroll Schield were enjoying their retirement there. Betty reports grandchild Miranda (Dan and Bobbi’s daughter) landed the lead in her school’s production of “Sleeping Beauty,” sharing the stage with her sister, Emily, who also had a part. Miranda and her cousin Jessica (David and Becky’s daughter) both got their driver’s licenses this year. Wendy has moved to Boulder from San Francisco. Betty had an angioplasty procedure this year (she had bypass surgery in October 1999) and continues her rehabilitation.
Aunt Mary Ann McCorry tells us her oldest son, Dan, left the Air Force after a long career to go into the private sector. Brian’s son, Patrick, is spending a year in Haiti teaching English, volunteering this service after graduating from Notre Dame in May. “I’m very proud of him,” Mary Ann writes. “No homage to wealth, but his service in the most corrupt and poor country in the Western Hemisphere is needed and that is the reward.”
Bud Jonas is recovering from cataract surgery in November, Teresa tells us. Daughter Tess moved to St. Paul, Minn., this year and is near nephews Luke and Jonas Shaner (Jane’s sons) who also live in the Twin Cities. Luke graduated from the University of Minnesota and is pursing a career in architecture, while Jonas is studying to become a chiropractor. Tess’ daughter, Erin, moved to Madison. Peter’s daughter, Jane, married Matt Zbinden on Sept 16 at Immaculate Conception. The newlyweds live in Bay View. Sarah has rented space for her catering business. Anna and husband John Borden are expecting their second child, a boy, in January, the same month their daughter, Eleanor, turns two. I hear Chad is a popular boy’s name these days.
Sr. Mary Aquinice is recovering from hip surgery she underwent in March. Sr. Mary Benedicta heard from her cousin, Annie Bruton, that her sister, Isabel McDonald, (Sister Aquinas) died on March 7 in Ireland. Annie is the last of the McCorry’s 14 cousins in the McDonald Family living. On July 12,1999, another first cousin on Grandma McCorry’s side died in Newry. She lived with her sister, Kathleen Fegan. Sr. Benedicta advises, “Use your family charts to mark their dates of death and thank God for the goodness of their lives.”
Honor the goodness of everyone’s lives, dead and living, as you observe the last Christmas of the 20th century and mark the beginning of the 21st. Best wishes to all of you.

On behalf of the McCorry families,

Robert J. Mullins