A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10:30 A.M. on Friday, April 21st, at St. Henry’s Catholic Church with Fr. Don Czapla officiating. She will be laid to rest in the Riverside Cemetery. Visitation will be held from 5:00 P.M – 7:00 P.M. on Thursday, April 20th at the Mitchell Family Funeral Home with a 7:00 P.M. Vigil service and Rosary. Memorials may be directed in Mary’s name to the Arthritis Foundation of Iowa, 4949 Pleasant St. #202, 202 West Des Moines, IA 50266. For condolences, please visit www.mitchellfh.com. Ph 641-844-1234.

Mary was born October 7, 1927, in Haydock, Iowa, the daughter of Theo W. and Margaret E. (Cunningham) Morris. The family moved to Albia where Mary attended public schools and graduated from Albia High School in 1945. She attended Drake University in Des Moines, worked at a dental office and the Iowa Tax Commission.

She met Everett Ormsby in 1949 and they married the following year at St. Anthony’s Church in Des Moines. The couple lived in Des Moines then moved to Marshalltown in 1959. They built their home on a mostly empty city block on South Sixth Street in 1960, with Everett supervising construction. At the time Sixth Street was a quiet dead-end road.

The couple were married 58 years and reared seven children. There were children in the home for 34 years. Mary volunteered and attended innumerable school activities, concerts and athletic events. She knitted and crocheted many baby blankets for family and friends and taught her daughters to sew. An active member of St. Henry’s Catholic Church, she was a member of the Ave Maria Study Club and assisted at funeral dinners. She cared for every elderly and sick family member for her entire adult life.

Mary was known for her baking, including homemade rolls and birthday cakes, rhubarb crisp, morning coffee cake and Christmas ginger bread houses. Her legendary homemade rolls were a favorite part of college ‘care packages,’ including at least one shipment sent cross country by Federal Express. She read newspapers every day and enjoyed crossword puzzles, loved cardinals, both birds and the baseball team. Mary especially enjoyed touring museums while visiting family in Washington D.C., New York and Texas. She knew every small town restaurant in central Iowa that had quality pork tenderloin sandwiches and was often recognized on return visits. She was proud of her Irish heritage, strong willed and spoke her mind, but was mostly reserved and private.

She is survived by two daughters: Anne Canavespe, of Houston, TX and Rita Ormsby, of Brooklyn, NY; three sons: Joe (Sue), of St. Cloud, MN, John, at home, and Mark (Wendy), of Silver Spring, MD; seven grandsons: Michael Canavespe, of Skiatook, OK, Matthew (Lisa) Canavespe, of Spring, TX, Timothy Canavespe, of Houston, TX, Brenden and Neil Ormsby, of St. Cloud, MN, Dominick Ormsby (fiancee Sami Bennett), of Minneapolis, MN and Terefe Ormsby, of Silver Spring, MD; two granddaughters, Evalyn Ormsby and Erin Ormsby, of Silver Spring, MD; great-granddaughter, Kylie Canavespe, of Skiatook, OK and great-grandson, Luke Canavespe, of Spring, TX.

Mary was preceded in death by her husband Everett in 2008; sons David and Tom; parents Theo ‘Ted’ and Margaret; two brothers, Bill and John, and sister Ruth Morris; sister-in-law, Charlotte Morris; nephew, Bob Morris and uncles Bernard, Dick and Dude Morris.