I have been captivated by the thoughtful, insightful, and often brilliant writing on what I will call authentic womanhood versus feminism by such Substack contributors as Elisabeth Stone and Abigail Austin. In fact, after reading Elisabeth Stone’s “Born to Be a Feminist,” especially the part about her grandmother’s “bitterness and poison” about not doing “her own thing” and instead settling down into marriage and family life, I could not help but see the sharp contrast between such a perspective on life compared to that of my mother, whom we only recently buried after she passed away at ninety-six-years of age. I thought it might be profitable to share a smidgeon of my mother’s story. And I do so on the anniversary of the day she gave birth to me, 12 November 1960, sixty-five years ago.

Margaret Mary Costello was born in 1929 in Weaver, Minnesota. Her father, Patrick Edward Costello (Ed) was a hard-working, educated, intelligent, dignified, and devout Irish Catholic, who attended Mass on Sunday and holy days, prayed his rosary daily, and did not drink because he did not like beer and he feared that he might like whiskey too much. Her mother, Vera, was an intelligent, educated, kind, complicated woman, a convert to the Catholic Faith, whose past included some traumatic events that may have contributed to some level of neurosis. Margaret grew up with one sibling, her beloved sister, Pat, (who would also attend the College of St. Catherine on scholarship, become a librarian, and who, though two years younger, would marry three years earlier and also have four daughters and three sons). At a young age, Margaret’s teacher walked her home to tell her parents that she should move up a grade. At seventeen she attended a leading Catholic women’s college on an academic scholarship. She graduated with a degree in library science and English and embarked on a nine-year odyssey of work, service, and adventure that many a feminist might have envied. And yet, she never considered herself a feminist.

Photographs of Margaret before she became Mom made us wonder at her pitching hay, riding a horse, wearing an Inuit parka in Alaska, standing atop the continental divide, holding a shotgun in one hand and a bird she had bagged in the other. We remember paraphernalia from her former life: a view finder with slide reels of her travels in the west, Mickey Mouse ear hats, an Inuit cup-and-ball game. It was not to prove something that she excelled in academics, edited the newspaper, served as senior class president, enjoyed football, ventured out to the Iron Range, Green Bay, California, and Alaska. She never renounced men, or marriage, or children. She just lived her life with intrepidness, wonder, and faith, hope, and love. In fact, she once told me that she never had any desire to be a feminist because the men in her life had treated her so well. Of course, her unwavering commitment to the Catholic Faith influenced her experience and outlook.

She just lived her life with intrepidness, wonder, and faith, hope, and love.

At twenty-eight, she settled in Stillwater, Minnesota, where she met Jim Ritzer, also a devout Catholic, whom she married and with whom she raised seven children. What she thought of marriage and family might well be summed up by a conversation I had with her one day upon returning home from kindergarten after I had for the first time met someone—call him Billy—whose parents were divorced.

“Billy’s parents are divorced.”

“Oh, that’s very sad.”

“Would you and Dad ever get divorced?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“We took vows.”

“Billy’s parents took vows too.”

“We meant them.”

Any doubts I may have had about the earthly permanence of my parents’ sacramental union were thus dispelled. (See “One Big Family.”)

Another memory was aroused when my sainted sister Mary was trying to coordinate a day for Mom’s funeral that would accommodate all seven of us siblings and families, especially a sister in Montana who had only recently undergone serious surgery. Mary was concerned about whether there could be an open-casket wake over a month after Mom had died. I said to Mary, “Well, you know Mom’s opinion on the subject.” Mary said, “No, what was it?” So I recounted what my mother (at least half Irish) had opined on the subject when she and I were going to attend a funeral for a relative some forty years or so before:

Oh, the Irish and their wakes. They have the casket open and everyone comes up and says, “Doesn’t she look wonderful?” No, she looks dead. Put me in a pine box. Cover it with the lid. Hold the funeral. Put me in the ground and throw dirt over me.

This put Mary at ease, though we did hold an open-casket wake and, ironically, Mom did look so wonderful that I and several other people remarked that we thought she would at any moment open her eyes, sit up, and speak to us.

Full though her life was, with plenty of joys and wonders, it also involved challenges, sufferings, and heartaches. She had several health challenges and surgeries, including a perforated ulcer that was misdiagnosed for several years as “change of life” that destroyed her duodenum and involved chronic intense pain that took its toll on her and the family until finally discovered and corrected by surgery. (One doctor had said to her, “I don’t know what your problem is; I met your husband and he seems like a nice guy.” She said that if she had not been doubled over, she would have hit him.) She relied on her intrinsic Catholic faith to forge her way through all of it.

Margaret and Jim centered their lives, their marriage, and their family in the Catholic Faith.

The following obituary, amalgamated by her children, summarizes her abundant life:

Margaret was born to Patrick and Vera (Odell) Costello in Weaver, Minnesota, on 22 June 1929. She spent her early years in the Mississippi River Valley and would later fondly recall adventures with extended family throughout southeastern Minnesota. When Margaret was in fourth grade, her father accepted the job of grain buyer at Hamm’s Brewery, and the family moved from Wabasha to St. Paul.

Margaret attended Harding High School, where she was editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, Saga, and graduated salutatorian in 1946. She then attended the College of St. Catherine on an academic scholarship. She studied Library Science, served as president of her senior class, and graduated at the age of 20 in 1950, with a bachelor’s degree in English.

After college, Margaret went to work as a teacher and librarian in several communities, including Mountain Iron, Minnesota (where she experienced Iron Range culture) and Green Bay, Wisconsin (where she often saw her beloved Green Bay Packers eating lunch at the YMCA). In the summer of 1956, she and a friend traveled by car to the California coast and back, before the construction of the Interstate Highway System. She then ventured north to accept a summer research position at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, prior to Alaska’s statehood.

Finally, Margaret followed her heart to where she had long hoped to settle, beautiful Stillwater, Minnesota, and accepted a librarian position at Stillwater High School. She loved her new job, but tragically lost her library in the 1957 school fire, and then went to work at the new high school. While working at Stillwater High, she found herself admiring a house under construction that she would pass on her way to work. Eventually she met the designer and builder of that house, a fellow daily communicant at St. Michael’s Church, James (Jim) Ritzer, an army veteran and Stillwater native. She would later say that her life did not begin until she met Jim.

Margaret and Jim were married at St. Michael’s Church in Stillwater in 1958, and in 1959, welcomed their first daughter, Mary. Peter, Mark, Gretchen, and Thomas followed. In 1966, they moved to Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, where Rebecca and Catherine were born, and Margaret and Jim raised their seven children as members of Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Parish. Jim worked as a landscape architect, and Margaret attended the University of Wisconsin and acquired her Wisconsin teacher’s license and returned to her profession within the Sun Prairie School District.

Margaret retired from teaching in 1991, and she and Jim moved to rural Menomonie, Wisconsin in 1998. In their retirement they savored the beauty of the land, foliage, birds, and animals of Reverie, their home in the woods. They also loved attending Mass, praying the Rosary, traveling, entertaining family and friends, watching the Packers, and volunteering for their church and community. They returned to the St. Croix River Valley in 2020, where Margaret enjoyed her final years among the wonderful folks of Croixdale and Boutwells Landing, built on what had been the farm she and Jim had bought and on which they had raised their family until they moved to Wisconsin.

Margaret and Jim centered their lives, their marriage, and their family in the Catholic Faith. Margaret taught her children the importance of faith, hope, charity, humility, frugality, challenging work, sticktoitiveness, and adventure. She also imparted an impressive understanding of, and appreciation for, literature and English grammar. She was an expert multi-tasker: raising a family, working full time, cooking, sewing, helping elderly neighbors, and volunteering for her parish. We will miss her devout faith, sincere smile, kind heart, selflessness, clear logic, quick rejoinders, witty sense of humor, and expansive vocabulary.

Rest in peace, Mom, in the Beatific Vision, toward which your faithful life long tended. We pray you have already heard these words: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Margaret’s funeral may be viewed here.

Her obituary slide show here.

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Thank you,

P. A. Ritzer

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