Margaret Ann Friel (Maggie), 85 of Butler passed away peacefully from complications resulting from a broken hip on Mother's Day May 9, 2021 at Concordia Assisted Living Facility in Cabot, PA.

Maggie Friel (The Person)

Maggie had a rare, almost superhero ability, to sense a person's soul within minutes of meeting them. She could sense a good soul, a troubled soul, or a lost soul.   She sought out the good souls and worked to keep them close.  She had compassion and encouragement for the troubled souls, and patience and forgiveness for the lost souls.  She was grateful for all the good souls that came into her life and she worked to the best of her abilities to help the lost and troubled souls that God sent her way.  She did what she could to nurture those souls.  Some healed, some did not, but all of them knew that there was another soul in the world that truly cared about their soul. The rheumatic fever she had as a child must have stripped her heart of any jealousy, envy or vanity and left her with a complete contentment that freed up her time to allow her to care for others.   She chose to spend her time helping others while at the same time never surrendering her independence.  She realized very early that she was in control of her own happiness, and that she preferred to live her life on her terms, but her happiness just happened to come from caring for others.  During her life she cared for far too many to list and she tailored her care to whatever was needed, and she somehow knew just what care to give.  To sum up Maggie Friel best is to say that she was a great caregiver.

Maggie Friel (the Child)

Maggie was born on May 12, 1935 in Butler to Estelle and Jacob Green.  Maggie had three sisters, Sara, Mary and Evelyn and two brothers, Ed and Bob with Evelyn being the sole survivor of the Green Family.  Maggie was the baby of the bunch and she spent her early years learning the dos and don'ts of life in a farmhouse in Unionville PA before moving with her family to Fairview Avenue in the city of Butler.  She had a wonderful childhood filled with more than enough love and just enough of everything else.  Her childhood took a brief pause after she contracted Rheumatic fever as a child which required 2 years of bed rest to recover.  That health scare provided her with the perspective that if you got your health, you've got something to be thankful for.  By all accounts she learned life's most important lessons from doing mostly good but sprinkled in just enough bad to make her make life a little more interesting.  She graduated from Butler High School in 1953 and set out to make a life for herself as a working woman

Maggie (Working life)

Maggie was a working woman all her adult life and her formula for making it in the working world was to give respect and earned respect over time.  Maggie worked jobs throughout her life but her two most notable ones were as a medical secretary for Dr. Sutton (a good soul to her), and for 22 years she was the primary custodian for the Beck Library at Butler County Community College.  She loved her job at the College and worked hard to do her part to make it the wonderful institution that it is today.  Her job title said custodian but everyone knew her as the College's nighttime ambassador.  She worked with, and for, some very nice people at the College and she was well liked and appreciated which was the two things she wanted in a career.

Maggie (The Original Good Wife)

Maggie married Joseph V Friel (Joe) on May 11, 1963 in St. Peter's church in Butler PA.  Maggie married Joe one day before her 28 ^th birthday and she was certain that Joe was proof positive that good things come to those who wait.  Maggie not only picked the perfect husband for herself, she also pick the perfect father for her kids.  There are no comparable love stories but their life together was an amazing love story.  Romeo and Juliet would be too much drama and Ozzie and Harriet would not have enough.  They never had to make the marriage work the marriage worked perfectly.  They were two people who just happened to really love each other and loved the home that they made for their family.  They were so different but so much the same that they will never discover the dating algorithm that would put those two together.  The two most common denominators were probably faith and family which meant so much to both of them but in the end it was the pure love they shared for each other that makes it one of the greatest love stories most of the world will never know.

Maggie (The Mother to us all)

After their marriage, Maggie and Joe got right to work making a family (to be honest way more work for Maggie than Joe).  Maggie had 5 boys in 6 years and her plans for more were ended by a thyroid storm that nearly killed her.  Maggie demonstrated her greatest caregiving skills in her role as an incredible mom, not just to her boys but to any boy or girl who needed a mom.  Like everything else in Maggie's life she was going to parent on her own terms.  Dr. Spock could do whatever he wanted in his house but Maggie ruled 545 East Pearl Street and pretty much all of Institute Hill when it came to raising her kids and whoever else's kids she seemed to be caring for at the time.  Maggie saw no reason to wait until your father gets home to administer justice.  Justice was swift, memorable and when there were times she doled out punishment to the wrong child it was justified by her saying "That is for when you may have gotten away with something".  That logic made perfect sense in the Friel home.  Maggie Friel's punishments were never unfair, they may have been just untimely.  Maggie's seemed to know that children want and accept firm boundaries when they know that inside those boundaries there is endless love.  Maggie and Joe both provided so much of that endless love which included so much caregiving, so much time, and so much energy.  Maggie may have used imperfect methods but she was the perfect mom to so, so many.  She was without a doubt a mother to us all.

Maggie Friel is survived by her six sons and their wives and partners, Stephen and Debbie, Jacob and Donna, David and Christine, Joseph and Marcie, Matthew and Jennifer, Woodie Beatrice and a great many grandchildren and great grandchildren.

To all the Good souls, lost souls, and troubled souls, who read this and wonder what can they do in honor of Maggie Friel, our family requests that you please just do try to be a caregiver to someone who is need of care today.

To end this with a smile, I say "one to my left"

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held on Saturday, May 15 ^th at 1:30pm at St. Peter Roman Catholic Church, 127 Franklin Street, Butler, with Rev. Kevin C. Fazio, officiating.

Inurnment will follow in Calvary Mausoleum.