Mayor Eulogizes Parents ‘Devoted to Each Other’

On the day after her mother died from a stroke--and just one week after her father’s death--Mayor Maureen O’Connor on Monday sought to remember her parents for what she described as their lifelong devotion to one another.

“They were one of the last true love stories,” she said. “They were devoted to each other for 54 years of marriage. They were partners in life and now they’re partners in death. She wanted to be with him and now she is.”

O’Connor said her mother “was an example to her daughters of how you can be a mother, a professional woman and a community leader, all in a quiet manner.”

Frances Shinnick O’Connor died late Sunday at Sharp Memorial Hospital. She was 78. She is survived by 12 children, 12 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Her husband, Jerome O’Connor, died of natural causes the previous Sunday at age 87. He and his wife were married in 1938 and raised 13 children in San Diego. Dennis, one of their six sons, died in 1961.

The O’Connors and their children were featured on the cover of Parade magazine in 1956. Frances O’Connor, named “Mother of the Year” by the magazine, told Parade that she and her husband “may not be rich in things like cars and clothes . . . but we are rich in children.”

Born in Fargo, N.D., Frances O’Connor was raised on the 125-acre family farm with her seven siblings.

She was described in the magazine article as a “serene and content” matriarch who selflessly worked 14 to 16 hours a day for her husband and children. She worked side-by-side with her husband in his Point Loma convenience-liquor store and once told an interviewer she made as many as 45 individual meals a day while her children were growing up.

“I’m reconciled to the fact that I will never finish my housework, that I never have time to read except late at night,” she said in the article. “I do the best I can, and that’s it. To me, it’s more important to spend a little time with my three youngest than, say, wash the woodwork.”

Frances O’Connor, a trim, petite woman and a nurse, first introduced her children to community service by having them teach patients with multiple sclerosis how to swim. Taught by their father, a one-time boxer, each O’Connor child learned to swim with adroit precision.

The seven O’Connor sisters became quite adept as precision swimmers, winning more than 1,000 individual and team medals and trophies. Jerome O’Connor once said he taught his children to swim after daughter Maureen almost drowned during an outing at the beach.

Jerome O’Connor and his wife, who shared his passion for physical fitness, met at a St. Patrick’s Day dance at the old Mission Beach Ballroom. Before getting married, Frances had worked as a nurse at St. Michael’s Hospital in Grand Forks, N.D. She later worked as a nurse at Mercy Hospital in San Diego, where her twin daughters were born.

Political experts have often said that any attempt to understand the mayor and what motivates her begins with her feelings for her Irish-American mother and father. She and her twin sister, Mavourneen, were born July 14, 1946, and all but one sibling remain in San Diego.

Funeral services for Frances O’Connor will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday at St. Vincent’s Catholic Church in Mission Hills. The family has requested donations to San Diego Catholic Worker, P.O. Box 127244, San Diego, 92112, in lieu of flowers.