McCorry Family Christmas Letter 2010

Blessings of the season to all…

As you gather with your families this Christmas, please remember in your prayers the members of the Jonas family who lost Tess Jonas Moede on June 8. She died in a fall at the home of her parents, Bud and Teresa Jonas, in Milwaukee. She was 60. Her passing was a shock to all. She was remembered at a service June 11 at the Prasser-Kleczka Bay View Chapel. Tess’s other siblings and grandchildren have been helping Bud and Teresa who still live in their home on the south side.

Other Jonases are flourishing in their careers in the bar and restaurant business in Milwaukee. Sarah’s restaurant/bar Café Lulu was honored twice by the Web site OnMilwaukee.com as the readers’ choice for the Best Sandwich and the Best Salad of 2010. “Café Lulu is a Bay View anchor, either on the quiet café side or bustling bar side,” read one of the reviews. Meanwhile, sibling Paul Jonas received a Mayor’s Design Award from Mayor Tom Barrett for his Tonic Tavern in Bay View. Tonic won in the “Design That Grabs You” category. Jim Jonas traveled to San Diego to visit sister Jane Williams and participate in a three-day, 60-mile long Susan G. Komen walk to raise money for breast cancer research (see photo). My brother Bill Mullins came down from L.A. to congratulate him. Tom and Sandy Jonas celebrated their 20^th anniversary this year; their son Connor is studying engineering at Arizona State University on an academic scholarship. Mary Pat and Michael Groth's son Jeremy is engaged to marry Krystal Polakowski July 9 next year; he's in medical school at UW-Madison. Sarah’s husband Scott Przybylowski finished restoring a 1964 Plymouth Valiant in time to party on Halloween dressed as Don Draper (see photo); he and the Valiant would fit right in on “Mad Men!” Anna, her husband John and their children had lunch with Kathy, Tricia and me in San Francisco in June during a West Coast vacation; we also saw Jane and her son Luke during their SF visit in the fall.

From the Schields comes news that our Aunt Betty turned 90 in February and that the family visited her and Uncle Carroll, 93, in Florida. Doctors have diagnosed “beginning Alzheimer’s” in Betty, writes Pat Werth from California, but several of the children think it’s just low blood sugar. Here’s a link to the entire Schield Family Newsletter. Other highlights, though, are that daughter Megan and her husband Nino Rabbaa, are expecting their second daughter in January; Juliana is already in kindergarten. Wendy’s daughter Brittany finishes her college studies in San Francisco in time for a Christmas trip to Paris with her mom. Pat asks you to include her sister Mary Alice in your prayers. Pat also says David and Becky were sprucing up the cottage outside Neillsville this summer and Pat hints that it is ready for a “'hopeful' McCorry Cousin's gathering sometime, perhaps in 2011.”

Tricia, Kathy and I have reconnected with our sister Eileen who has a small apartment in downtown San Francisco. Eileen is working as a massage therapist and hoping to attend school to learn computer graphic design. We’ll be gathering Christmas Eve for a concert at the renowned Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Tricia traveled to Connecticut this summer to visit her daughter Erin who was interning at a church there and participating in a community support program. Erin expects to earn a Bachelor’s Degree in 2011 in general ministries with a minor in Bible theology from Simpson University in Redding, Calif. The two of them also visited Cape Cod with relatives from her late husband Ken’s side of the family. Kathy’s daughter Maureen spent the summer teaching in Honduras and now shares an apartment in Berkeley with her brother Brendan who’s finishing up his studies at UC-Davis. Joe, now working at a Kmart in Milwaukee, came out to California so we could celebrate his 50th birthday (see photo). Mary and Betty are still neighbors in Shorewood. Betty enjoyed a reunion with her “other” Brothers and Sisters, the song and dance group she was with in the 1970s. Our nephew Casey Mullins is 15 and populates his Facebook page with several photos of him with attractive female classmates! Bill has had his contract doing technical writing in LA for Yahoo renewed for another year, while I’ve also won a full year renewal of a contract blogging about Microsoft for Network World. I also enjoy getting demos of new devices running Windows Phone 7 and Google Android and writing reviews there and on Examiner.com.

The McCorrys celebrated two weddings this year. The oldest son of Brian and Betsy McCorry, Patrick (left), married Erin Lafler July 31 in Olympia, Wash. Patrick works for an online advertising firm while his wife attends medical school in New York City. Later, middle child Liz (below) married Phil Koesterer Sept. 17, at St. Patrick’s Church in South Bend, Ind. Phil works in marketing and Liz works for the Dorothy and Gaylord Donnelly Foundation, both in Chicago. “Both weddings were just wonderful, far surpassing our expectations,” Betsy wrote me.

Sr. Aquinice (Aunt Rita) tells me that Sr. Benedicta (Aunt Eleanor) is “surprisingly holding her own” two years after her stroke. “She lights up when she sees someone she knows and is always upbeat,” Rita says, though she still struggles with talking.

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Thanks to all the contributors to this year’s letter and best wishes to all of you for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2011!

Love,

Robert Mullins