Mary Ripple

MADISON - Mary Anne Ripple (Van Driel) went home to the Lord on Friday, February 15, 2019 after 91 ½ happy years. She was born in Chicago, IL, August 4, 1927, to the wonderful Herbert and Helen (Paschke) Van Driel. Dutiful but independent from the start, when her public school teacher made her, a left-handed 7-year-old, write right-handed on the board all morning in front of the class, after doing as she was told she calmly walked out and home, announcing, "Daddy, I'm not going back there." Instead, they sent her to St Andrew's Catholic. At her parents' drug store she "waited on trade from the time I could see over the lunch counter" and learned from her mom to make pies without parallel.

Thrilled to be at all-girls Alvernia Catholic High where all leadership positions were open to girls, she became newspaper editor and class president. She applied at the Tribune to be a copygirl but was told, "We only take copyboys." She was undeterred. At 19 while studying journalism at Marquette University, Mary Anne met her husband, WWII vet Donald T (Jeffords) Ripple. She felt called to marry her love, yet grieved at the certain loss of the career she had imagined. They left college and married in Arlington Hts, IL, on August 23, 1947. In West Bend, they had 7 children - 6 girls and "1 poor boy." She worked at home, writing for Marquette's Center for Educational Freedom. Moving to Madison, when her youngest went to kindergarten and oldest to UW, Mary Anne went back to school too, earning bachelors and masters degrees in Political Science at UW.

She became the first woman in the state to register as a lobbyist, working for a Milwaukee firm as well as volunteering her skills for Catholic causes, helping to pass state laws to allow speech therapy, psychological counseling and bus transportation for independent school students - even once passing a bill her mentor told her had "a snowball's chance in hell." Later she was the executive director of the lobbying arm of the Chamber of Commerce and of WI School Parents.

On the Edgewood High School board during strapped financial times, Mary Anne promoted a program whereby parents who could afford it paid more than their share to provide for those who could not; it succeeded and kept the doors open. She trained in Alinsky community organizing, then founded and co-chaired the Dane County Citizens Organization, and lobbied for a human life amendment, taking on the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

Over decades, she led multiple Catholic organizations in West Bend and Madison, including raising money to build St Francis Cabrini in West Bend, teaching Great Books to middle-schoolers, and leading the Queen of Peace parish council. She was asked to be the first women to read at Mass there after Vatican II, and organized support to include the school and a gym in a planned church-only renovation.

All the while, Mary Anne was there when her children arrived home from school, providing a delicious homemade dinner and a ready ear, was devoted and deferential to her charismatic husband, gave us unconditional love, faith, patience and positivity, and modeled independence tempered with duty to God, community and the greater good. She was quick with a clever pun, proud of her Dutch heritage, loved to quote both Shakespeare and her parents' pidgin German, started blogging in her 80s, and read 3 newspapers a day until just days before her death. For the last 25 years she hosted a weekly Sunday morning breakfast for her entire brood. Seeing the abundance of love always evident among Mary Anne's gathered offspring, many of whom lived close by, one grandson called her street Lover's Lane.

She leaves behind her incredibly proud and grateful children Annette (Mike) Doyle, Tom (Sue) Ripple, Diane (John) Roach, Susanne (Kurt) Ripple Welke, Helen Koberstein, and Kate Ripple (Steve Holaday); son-in-law John Boyle; 20 grandchildren, who know - because she often reminded them - that all their good qualities came from her: Mike (Erin) Doyle, Patrick (Meghan) Doyle, Kristen (Cody) Wilcox, Jeffrey Ripple, Matt Ripple (Elizabeth Ploch), Haley (Reggie) Boyle Williams, Danny (Kristina) Boyle, and Anthony Boyle; Katie, Maggie and JT Roach; Augusta and Sampson Ripple Welke; Natalie, Annie (Mike Hecht) and Elizabeth Koberstein; and Tom (Laura), Mark, David and Faith Holaday; 11 great grandchildren: Andrew, Isabelle, Thomas, Anna, Brendan and Connor Doyle, Caelan, Kendyll and Charlie Wilcox, Olivia Williams, and baby Boyle. She was preceded in death by her parents, husband of 37 years, brother Herb, daughter Mary C Boyle, son-in-law Joe Koberstein and grandson Andy Ripple.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held on Saturday, February 23, 2019 at 1 p.m. at OUR LADY QUEEN OF PEACE CATHOLIC CHURCH MADISON, Msgr. Ken Fiedler celebrating and her cousin Rev. James Beath concelebrating. A visitation will be held on Friday, February 22, 2019 from 4:30-7:30 p.m. at Cress Funeral Home on Speedway Road, and before Mass at the church beginning at 11:30 am on Saturday. Burial will be at Resurrection Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, those who wish to honor her may donate to the Edgewood High School Endowment's Mary Anne Ripple Freedom of School Choice Scholarship, the Our Lady Queen of Peace School Endowment, or the Catholic Multicultural Center.

She embodied grace inside and out and was a "class act," start to finish. We love you Mom, "Come good home."

Cress Funeral and Cremation Service
3610 Speedway Road
Madison, Wisconsin
(608)-238-3434