Colleen O’Shea, mother of Ald. Matt O’Shea, dies

When Anne O’Shea was a teenager, she winced when her mother peppered her friends with questions about their mother’s maiden name or the parish they were from.

“But every single time, it would turn out she knew their aunt or something,” she said. “She always got to the bottom of it.”

That’s who she was, friends and family said: A question asker, excellent listener and socialite who seemed to somehow know everyone.

Colleen O’Shea, 79, mother of Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th), died Sunday from complications from renal failure, her daughter said. Her health had been on the decline for a long time. Twelve years ago, her sight began to fade. After a minor stroke that damaged her optic nerve it got worse, and she had to stop working. For three years, she was on dialysis. Weeks before her death, Colleen was diagnosed with colon cancer.

But none of it brought her down, friends and relatives said.

Colleen was always one to accentuate the positive, and appreciate what she had rather than lament what she did not have. She thought of others first and was a kind, giving person all her life. When people walked through her door, they felt like she wanted them to be there, Anne O’Shea said.

“The world would be a better place with more Colleen O’Shea’s in it,” she said.

The way Colleen told it, her childhood was like a television show. She grew up in a house built at 7818 S. Loomis in Auburn Gresham, where three generations of her family had lived, with three brothers and an older sister. In her neighborhood, people didn’t knock, they just came in, her daughter said. She attended St. Sabina’s grammar school and Longwood Academy of Our Lady High School.

She didn’t leave that house until she married Daniel O’Shea in 1959, at age 22. The couple eventually settled in Beverly and were married for 57 years.

In 1954, Colleen took a job at United Airlines in the personnel department. On the company dime, she and Daniel had their honeymoon in Colorado Springs. She and her mother flew for free to California, where one of her siblings lived. In an age when air travel was glamorous, it probably seemed like an exotic career, Anne O’Shea said.

“She liked being in an industry with people like her, who were accommodating and looking to please,” she said.

Colleen stopped working to raise her children. The couple’s first child, Daniel O’Shea, died three months after he was born in September 1962. But four more, Anne, Matt, Michael and Maura, soon followed.

Lynette Iannantuoni met the O’Shea’s in 1970 when she, her husband and children moved to Beverly. Their backyards touched and a gate between them made coming and going easy. The women were fast friends.

Iannantuoni said Colleen was selfless and warm. When one of her children was injured in an accident, Colleen quickly gathered up the others so she did not have to worry about them on her way to the hospital. Colleen would never hesitate to help another person, she said.

“If you met Colleen, she was your friend,” she said.

Eventually, Colleen went back to work in the travel industry as an agent. She and Daniel traveled a lot then: to Greece, Egypt, Quebec, Ireland, the Caribbean and Pacific Northwest up into Canada.

Thirty-five years ago, Colleen founded a Beverly bridge club that never got past putting the cards on the table.

Instead, the group of eight to 10 women talked about their life and families, laughed and drank wine, although Colleen never imbibed. They traded books, and books-on-tape when Colleen’s eyesight declined.

On group vacations to Florida, they performed water ballet in the pool, sometimes wearing funny costumes. Once, it earned them drinks from an admiring family watching from the pool deck. Iannantuoni, who is a member of the group, said they had great fun.

When her son Michael was young, Colleen O’Shea decorated a pumpkin for a contest at his elementary school. It was a last minute job for a project she found out about that day, so she was floored when it won.

But it was not because the pumpkin was spectacular. Teachers were on the lookout for pumpkins decorated by their parents and it was obvious that Michael had made his himself. She laughed it off, joking that she couldn’t even draw a stick figure, and told the story for years. Colleen had a good sense of humor, friends and family said.

Visitation will be held at Visitation Christ the King Church, 9235 S. Hamilton Ave., from 3-9 p.m. and Friday at 9:30 a.m. prior to a Mass of Christian Burial at 10 a.m. and interment at Mt. Olivet Cemetery at 111th St. and California Ave. in Chicago. Memorials can be sent to Little Company of Mary Hospice 2800 W. 95th St. Evergreen Park, IL 60805.

@MatthewMcCall_