Kathleen Ann O'Donnell McGreevy died on November 17, 2025, in the arms of her family at home – right where she wanted to be.

Funeral Mass will be 11:00 am Friday, November 28, at Church of St. Mary, 2109 S. 5th Ave., Sioux Falls, SD with the family greeting friends one hour prior.  Following a reception luncheon, there will be burial at St. Michael Cemetery in Sioux Falls, SD.  All are welcome.

Kathleen loved a good story, so let's start hers on the frontier. She was born in her beloved hometown of Cheyenne, Wyoming on October 18, 1939. Her father, Thomas LeRoy O'Donnell, died when Kathleen was just nine, and the trio of women that remained – Kathleen, her mother Nora, and her older sister Mary Ruth – were the source of her strength, her tenacity, her intelligence, and her sense of justice. Growing up in Cheyenne was idyllic for Kathleen: she and her friends spent hours cruising between the two local drive-ins on weekend nights. Kathleen's mother, Nora Prindiville O'Donnell, a solo parent and a dedicated state employee at the Wyoming Land Office, when neither of those things was commonplace for women, created a loving home with books and piano lessons and a showpiece garden, trips to the Snowy Range, and visits to North Dakota to see cousins. This model of self-sufficiency through difficult times, and the Depression-era principles about stretching a dollar, stayed with Kathleen throughout her life.

Kathleen's father was a conductor on the Union Pacific Railroad, which inspired both a love of travel and the plot twist that was to determine so much of the rest of her story. When Kathleen was choosing a college, her mother told her it needed to be on a Union Pacific route, so they could utilize the unlimited travel benefits of her late father. She chose Creighton University, where she dove into a journalism major and sorority life. In her senior year she went on a blind date with a Creighton medical student named Patrick McGreevy. They married on September 8, 1962, at St. Mary's Church in Cheyenne. Patrick and Kathleen were married for 63 years. It was a true meeting of minds and hearts. Kathleen and Patrick traveled the country and world together, with favorite trips to Coronado, Paris, Ireland, London, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Sanibel Island, Colorado Springs, wherever her children and grandchildren happened to be, and Lake Five near Vergas, Minnesota. Throughout her life, trips to Cheyenne's Little America, the Wyoming Capitol building across the street from her childhood home, and Cheyenne's finest mini-golf course, The Putt Hutt, remained her personal Xanadu.

The next chapters were a whirlwind of travel and babies: Two years in Boston and Newport RI during Pat's Navy stint, where oldest son John was born. Four years back in Omaha where daughters Sheila and Mary were born. Then a final move to Sioux Falls in 1969, where son Kevin was born – the family was complete and now had enough players for a competitive foosball game. Kathleen was the creator, designer, and engineer of their home life, both on S. 9th Ave and Hickory Hill Road. Station wagons, parties, dance lessons, piano lessons, sports teams, school committees, Girl Scouts, bridge nights, tennis leagues, and family celebrations on Maryknoll Drive, where Pat's parents John and Helen lived. It's only in retrospect that we, Kathleen's kids, can know how hard she worked and how loved we felt. Kathleen read books to her kids every night; she liked highbrow and lowbrow literature, from Diary of Anne Frank to Amelia Bedelia. She succeeded in every way as a thoughtful, creative, brilliant wife and mom, and her kids are forever grateful for having her as a role model.

After about 15 years at home, Mom ventured into the employment world, with her unflagging work ethic. She taught Journalism and English at O'Gorman High School for six years, while obtaining a Master's of Education at SDSU in 1988. She then taught Journalism courses at Augustana for 3 years, had a stint as a reporter for the Argus Leader, then became Director of Communications for Avera Health, where she worked for 15 years. Working on the team that changed the system name from McKennan to Avera was one of her signature efforts. She wrote every communication that came from leadership during those years.

The day after Kathleen retired from Avera, she opened an LLC called Chapter Savers, where she produced written and video memoirs for clients for 13 years. Not surprisingly, she became good friends with many of her memoir subjects, expanding her Sioux Falls experience in joyful ways. She was on the national board of the Association of Personal Historians, where she met fascinating colleagues who became friends.

While Kathleen always had a piece of her heart in Wyoming, she was a Sioux Falls booster extraordinaire. She enjoyed being in the know on city plans through her Rotary membership, and always had a list of new Sioux Falls things to visit when kids and grandkids were visiting. Her one longstanding gripe with the city was how the street numbers and house numbers aren't aligned for easy navigation ("like in a normal city"). You really didn't want to challenge her to a match of wits or organizational skills.

As a grandmother, Kathleen was without peer. She was a baby whisperer who knew when a baby was genuinely fussy or simply needed to burp (an underrated skill). She could make a doll house out of Kleenex and keep kids enthralled for hours. She spun tales about imaginary people and committed to the yarn for years, always embellishing with new chapters. She traveled out of state to her grandkids' piano recitals, sports matches, fundraisers, theater performances, and so much more. As a confident techie and lifelong learner, she hopped on social media and was able to converse frequently with the grandkids scattered across the country and world.

Here's what Kathleen loved: poetry, salty snacks, tennis, sly wit, Talbots clothing, a game of Rummy 500 (she'd beat you every time), Coronado Island, Mr. Bean sketches, the New Yorker, a snappy scarf, the New York Times daily crossword (she was a whiz at the Saturday puzzle, thank you very much!), philosophy, sing-a-longs at the piano, Rhapsody in Blue, cheese and crackers for lunch, Pepsi, Sauvignon Blanc, collecting cookbooks but not cooking from them, holding babies, a good nap, the Rocky Mountains (on the Wyoming side), art museums, and handwritten letters.

Here's what Kathleen didn't love: heights, cooking (see note on cookbooks above…you figure that out), sewing, inefficiency, leftover food, garlic, unfolded laundry, a poorly written sentence, online maps (she knew how to get places faster and would race you there), clutter, unmade beds, houses where people take shoes off at the front door, and long goodbyes (noted, Mom).

Kathleen had 85 years of near perfect health. Despite marrying into a family of doctors, she really didn't want to ever see doctors, and for 85 years that served her. She was an early adopter of yoga, dabbled in tap dancing, studiously observed the game and the mindset of tennis players so she could improve her own game, walked miles daily until she couldn't, and was a recent convert to Pilates. The last year of her life kicked her butt, and ours too. Cancer and pneumonia were not on the radar.

Our hearts are broken. Wandering the home that she so lovingly created, but without her in it, feels like the world is off kilter. We do know without a doubt that her dear mama Nora would be proud of the life Kathleen forged through grit and wit and love. We hope they are somewhere together with Kathleen's sister Mary Ruth, fighting over the restaurant bill and watching a Cheyenne Frontier Days parade.

Kathleen was a fan of the writer Marcel Proust, so her story ends with his words:

Do not wait for life. Do not long for it. Be aware, always and at every moment, that the miracle is in the here and now.

Kathleen is survived by her devoted husband Patrick, her four kids John (Jean), Sheila (Joe), Mary (Ernest), Kevin (Fran); her twelve grandchildren: Bridget (Max), John (Maddie), Michael, Nora, Kate, Lucy, Margaret, Patrick, Leo, Jane, James, Milo; and two great-grandchildren: Fritz and Bennett.

Soon after she had moved to Sioux Falls, Kathleen attended an impactful lecture by Dorothy Day, a founder of the Catholic Worker. Kathleen's own faith also and always included a commitment to justice. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to a ministry of the Presentation Sisters that was meaningful to Kathleen: Caminando Juntos serves Latino immigrants in eastern South Dakota; their mission is to "welcome the stranger and work for justice." https://www.caminandojuntossd.org