Marie Louise (FitzGerald) Hogan March 25, 1924-Jan. 2, 2018

     Marie Louise (FitzGerald) Hogan, age 93, died peacefully at her daughter Irene’s home Jan. 2, 2018. 

     Mass of Christian Burial will be held 11 Monday morning, Jan. 8, 2018 at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Monticello with interment in the Immaculate Conception Cemetery, Castle Grove. Rev. Paul Baldwin will officiate at the services. Visitation will be held from 2-6 p.m. Sunday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church with a Rosary and Parish Vigil service starting at 2. The family will receive friends again after 10 Monday in the Gathering Room at Sacred Heart Church. Goettsch Funeral Home, Monticello, has been entrusted with Marie’s care and arrangements. Thoughts, memories and condolences may be left at www.goettschonline.com. In lieu of flowers memorials may be made to a right to life group or a hospice of choice. 

     Marie was the second of three daughters born to Francis and Mary Sullivan FitzGerald, March 25, 1924, in Detroit, Mich. Marie attended St. Gabriel’s grade school and St. Anne’s High School in Detroit. Marie went on to college and earned her Bachelor Degree in Nursing, from Mercy College in Detroit, in 1946. She then worked as a nurse at Mercy Hospital in Clinton, Iowa, while James T. Hogan courted her. She met James through his sister Irene, who attended Mercy College in Detroit as well. Marie came to Iowa to visit Irene on the farm in Castle Grove and James and Marie’s love grew from there.

     Marie and James were married Sept. 3, 1949 in Detroit. They farmed together in Castle Grove Township until James’ death in 1992. Marie continued to farm with her sons until moving to Silvercrest assistive living in Anamosa, Iowa, in 2009. She enjoyed playing cards and making new friends there at Silvercrest until she moved in 2013 with her daughter and son-in-law, Irene and Phil Bonifazi in Anamosa, Iowa. Irene and Phil cared for her lovingly until her death.

     Marie enjoyed farming life, raising nine children and helping with numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren. Marie did have to jump right into farming. On arriving home from their honeymoon in the fall of 1949 there had been a windstorm downing the corn crop. This required hand picking the corn crop into a wagon. At that point she joked she had considered “walking back to Detroit, if it had been closer.”

     Marie was a faith filled woman all her life. She enjoyed farming, embroidering, crocheting, baking bread and in her retirement making rosaries to send to the missions. She likely made over a thousand rosaries over the years. She enjoyed playing cards and often seemed to have the luck of the Irish in her ability to win, at most any game she played.

     In her final months she was less able to interact but continued to enjoy having the rosary said aloud in her room. Her granddaughter Sr. Stephanie was able to spend time praying and reading with her during a state side visit in August through October. Mom continued to teach us during those final months about patience, loving and kindness. 

     Marie will be deeply missed by James F. and Rebecca Hogan (Monticello), Anne Maren-Hogan and Sam Maren (North Carolina), Patrick and Mary Hogan (Monticello), John and Margaret Hogan (Earlville), Mary and Delbert Weber (Mechanicsville), Michael and Cheryl Hogan (Monticello), Irene and Phillip Bonifazi (Anamosa), Jean Hogan (Iowa City), and Jeanette and Dennis Shoop (Prairieburg). She will also be deeply missed by her 28 grandchildren and 55 great grandchildren, (with three on the way). Marie is also survived by 18 nieces and nephews in Wisconsin, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Florida. 

     She was proceeded in death by her two sisters, her husband James T. Hogan, two grandchildren: infant Angela Hogan and Daniel Corbett; and by one great grandchild infant, Joseph Weber.