Eulogy for Genevieve Louisa Glacy

Genevieve Louisa Glacy was born on July 9, 1906, and died August 15, 2007. She died at 6:10 am on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a very appropriate day for her to die because of her devotion to Mary and because I believe it was time for Genevieve to go to heaven. She was 101 years old. God blessed her with wonderful health and wit. She had never been seriously ill or hospitalized until three years ago when she fractured a hip. She worked as an executive secretary until age 85 and only retired then to care for an older sister.

Gen or Gene was one of seven Irish Catholic Kansas farm girls and one boy who left home to find work and to make a difference in the world. She is the last of her family, but is survived by many loving nephews, nieces, grand-nephews and nieces, and great grand-nephews and nieces.

Her life defines what it means to be a loving family member. She was committed to her profession and to her church. And she knew how to have fun. Gen faithfully attended all family birthday and holiday celebrations. She hosted nephews and nieces in her home for weekend stays. She would drive in her Studebaker to Kingman and Chandler, Arizona to visit her brother and sister. She was the one we asked for the name or birth date of a cousin’s child. In her nineties she cared for her older sister, my mother, and then her younger sister all the while keeping a cheery and positive attitude.

After graduating from Mt. St. Scholastica Academy where she earned awards for academic distinction, she went onto business college to train as a secretary and received awards for shorthand at 140 words per minutes and typing at 100 words per minute long before word processors and spell check. She followed my mother to California and found a job with the Gas Company. She rose to work for the General Counsel of the company and moved with him when he became president. Along the way, she helped me with term papers at Loyola and my application to Harvard. In later years, she helped my sons with their Mater Dei term papers and college applications. She retired at age 65 and then came back to work at age 70 when Mary and I formed BIMA. She approached her job for me with love and professionalism.

She was baptized and went to grammar school at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in the farming area of Atchison, Kansas. When she lived in Los Angeles, she belonged to the Altar Society at her parish and would launder, starch and iron the altar clothes and priest albs at her home. When she and her sisters traveled they selected Catholic travel groups so they could have the ability to attend daily Mass. She handled the transition from the Latin Mass to the English Mass as easily as she handled so many of the changes that occurred during her lifetime. When she moved into the apartment behind St. Norbert’s Rectory, she was a daily communicant. At Park Plaza in Orange, she would confound the staff by taking her walker the several hundred steps north to Holy Family Cathedral for Sunday Mass. This continued after her hip surgery. In the last half year of her life, when she could no longer live on her own, she selected St. Francis Assisted Living Home in Santa Ana because Mass was celebrated there daily in the chapel.

Genevieve enjoyed life. She read, she traveled, she had season tickets to the theater, she played bridge, listened to radio shows, and she attended hundreds of youth soccer games in Orange and at Mater Dei. She was the hostess with the mostest for family affairs. She prepared wonderful steak dinners followed by homemade seven layer cake. In her 30’s and 40’s she smoked cigarettes. Didn’t all sophisticated women in the 1940’s? She stopped. She liked an occasional drink. She would give up alcohol for Lent and then celebrate with a friend at midnight Holy Saturday night at the Pacific Dining Car Restaurant in Los Angeles. At her 100th birthday party, she toasted everyone with a margarita. She was happiest when she was with family. It was so much fun for me to see her interact with her sisters when they were in their 70’s and older. They were still like teenage girls together.

Only God knows all of His saints. But I believe Gen was welcomed by St. Peter at the heavenly gates and is now with her parents, sisters, brother, and other relatives looking down on us. I suspect she is reciting this Irish prayer right now.

May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face And rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

And Aunt Genevieve that is my prayer for you.

Delivered by: “W. J.” Campbell St. Norbert’s Catholic Church Tuesday, September 5, 2007