Margaret Ann Friel
The matriarch of Institute Hill, Margaret Ann “Maggie” Friel was born on Mother’s Day, May 12, 1935, and returned to Heaven to be reunited with her loving husband, Joe, on Mother’s Day, May 9, 2021. Maggie passed away peacefully at Concordia Assisted Living Facility in Cabot.
Maggie sought out good souls and worked to keep them close to her. She had compassion and encouragement for the troubled souls, and patience and forgiveness for the lost souls. She was grateful for all the good souls that came into her life, and she did what she could to care for the troubled and lost souls God sent her way. Some healed, some did not, but all of them knew that there was another soul in the world that truly cared about them.
The rheumatic fever she had as a child must have stripped her heart of any jealousy, envy or vanity, and left her with a complete contentment that freed her to care for others. She realized very early that she was in control of her own happiness, but her happiness just happened to come from caring for others.
Maggie was born on May 12, 1935, in Butler, to Estelle and Jacob Green.
Maggie had three sisters, Sara, Mary and Evelyn, and two brothers, Ed and Bob, with Evelyn being the sole survivor of the Green family. She had a wonderful childhood filled with more than enough love and just enough of everything else. She learned life’s most important lessons from doing mostly good, but sprinkled in just enough bad to make her life a little more interesting. She made childhood friends that lasted a lifetime.
She graduated from Butler High School in 1953, then set out to make a life for herself.
Maggie was a working woman all of her adult life, and her formula for making it in the working world was to give respect, and to earn respect over time. Maggie worked many jobs throughout her life, but her two most notable ones were as a medical secretary for Dr. Sutton (a good soul to her), and for 22 years, she was the primary custodian for the Beck Library at Butler County Community College. She loved her job at the college. Her job title said custodian, but everyone knew her as the college’s nighttime ambassador. She was well-liked and appreciated, which were the two things she wanted in a career.
Maggie married Joseph “Joe” V. Friel on May 11, 1963, in St. Peter’s Church in Butler. Maggie married Joe one day before her 28th birthday, and she was certain that Joe was proof positive that good things come to those who wait.
Maggie not only picked the perfect husband for herself, she also picked the perfect father for her kids. They were two people who just happened to really love each other, and loved the home that they made for their family. They were so different, but so much the same. The two most common denominators were faith and family, which meant so much to both of them, but in the end, it was the pure love they shared for each other that made theirs one of the greatest love stories most of the world will never know.
After their marriage, Maggie and Joe got to work making a family, with Maggie doing most of the hard work. Maggie had five boys in six years, and her plans for more were ended by a thyroid storm that nearly killed her. Maggie demonstrated her greatest caregiving skills in her role as an incredible mom, not just to her boys, but to any son or daughter who needed a mom. Like everything else in her life, Maggie would parent on her own terms. Maggie ruled 545 East Pearl Street, and pretty much all of Institute Hill, when it came to raising her kids and whoever else’s kids she seemed to be caring for at the time. Maggie seemed to know that children want and accept firm boundaries when they knew that inside those boundaries there is endless love. Maggie and Joe both provided so much of that endless love in their home. Maggie may have used imperfect methods, but she was the perfect mom to so, so many.
Maggie Friel is survived by her six sons and their wives and partners, Stephen and Debbie, Jacob and Donna, David and Christine, Joseph and Marcie, Matthew and Jennifer, Woodie Beatrice; and a great many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
FRIEL — A Mass of Christian burial for Margaret Ann “Maggie” Friel, who died Sunday, May 9, 2021, will be celebrated at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at St. Peter Roman Catholic Church, 127 Franklin St., Butler, with the Rev. Kevin C. Fazio officiating.
Inurnment will follow at Calvary Mausoleum.
Arrangements have been entrusted to the care of Martin Funeral Home, 429 Center Ave., Butler.
In lieu of flowers and as an honor to Maggie Friel, our family requests that you please be a caregiver to someone who is need of care today. To end this with a smile, we say “one to my left.”
For more information, please visit www.martinfh.net.
