Mary O'Keefe Daly age 73 of Sioux Falls, SD, passed away Saturday November 21, 2020. The family will greet friends from 5:00-7:00 PM Friday November 27, at the Cathedral of St. Joseph, with a time of sharing at 6:00 PM, closing with the Rosary.  A funeral Mass will begin at 10:30 AM Saturday November 28, at the Cathedral with burial at St. Michael Catholic Cemetery. In lieu of sending flowers, please buy one of Mary's books from Hedgeschool for yourself or donate it to a school.

Mary O'Keefe Daly was born in Washington, D.C., in 1947. She was one of nine children, born to polymath parents, her father a NASA scientist, her mother a lover of language and poetry. Mary stayed in close touch with her siblings throughout her life, recognizing each of their gifts and trying to magnify them. She graduated from Stone Ridge High School in 1964, and attended New College, where she completed a B.A. in mathematics in 1968. Mary spent six years with the IHM sisters in Michigan, leaving them before taking her final vows.

After Mary left the convent, she wandered a little way from the Church as she sought to reconcile her love of science with her love of God. It was at this time that she met Mike, who was in the process of wandering back to the Church. They fell in love quickly and married, and soon welcomed their eldest son Jonathan, and soon thereafter, Christopher.

In 1978, Mike and Mary moved to South Dakota and to the acreage where they raised their boys, who were soon joined by their sisters Ruth, Rebecca, and Briege. Mary found herself a young mother in a new home. She formed her first friendships through the La Leche League, and carried them through the rest of her life. She wrote a recipe column for the local paper, the Dell Rapids Tribune .

During this time, through the influence of the Charismatic Renewal Movement, and especially through the friendship and guidance of Fr. Roger Geditz, Mary and Mike made their way back to the Church. Fr. Geditz baptized Jon, Chris, Ruth, and Becky on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1986.

Finally, Mary could see that only the Catholic Church had the richness of intellectual and spiritual tradition to synthesize advances in modern science and the revelation of Jesus, the personal Son of God, who walks with each of us in the Spirit.

She became instrumental in developing the young Catholic homeschool community in Sioux Falls, Saint Margaret's Fellowship. Through that community, and through her writing and speaking, she continued to add friends to an ever-growing society who shared a vision of renewing Catholic culture, right up to the very end.

Mary believed that a love of truth required a love of precision, in science, history, and language. Emily Dickinson's favorite book, she liked to say, was the dictionary. Beauty was a path to truth, the source of Mary's love of poetry, singing, and sacred music. Mary's love for Jesus, her love for her children and their spouses, and her love for science led her to a long and productive avocation as a writer and educator focused on helping people understand that God reveals himself to us both through his natural and created world, and through his Incarnation in it. Her wonder at the greatness of God's creation led her to study and teach botany, weather, geology, astronomy, chemistry, numbers, and evolution, among other things. Mary desired that everyone could hold the universe in their hands. She wrote for home educators like herself, and many families across the country benefited from her insight and her commitment to sound science and sound religion.

Mary was blessed with a husband who cherished and admired her, who believed in and devoted himself to assisting her in her work. She relied on Mike's dedication and support of her mission in her business, the Hedge School. Toward the end of her life, Mary became concerned that there was no comprehensive Catholic answer to the rising secular pseudo-religion of psychology. So she attained an advanced degree in psychology and wrote what she considered to be her most important work, Psychology for a Windy World . One of Mary's greatest desires was that her work would continue to spread. Please look at her website, www.hedgeschool.com , where this book as well as many other books, essays, videos and resources, are described. Mary also blogged extensively, even in her last days, at megonfire.wordpress.com .

As her children grew to adulthood, Mary gained five more loving children in their spouses. She took great pleasure in welcoming her twenty-four grandchildren, in some cases assisting at their births. In the last 18 months, she was blessed with four beautiful baby girls and one handsome boy, a new baby from each of her children. As Mary would say, "All this? I am wealthy."

Mary's bequest to us is rich indeed: she befriended many and loved us all dearly. She cared deeply for each person she met. She knew that to pass on a truly Catholic culture, first you had to sit face to face and break bread, just as Jesus did with us. All those who were loved by Mary will never forget that love.

Mary is survived by her siblings George (Pam), Katharine, John (Elizabeth), Emily (Mark) Koczela, Jane (Anthony) Meyerhofer, Lucy (Peter) Hancock, and Rachel (Steve Bohlin); her children Jonathan (Marie), Christopher (Lisa), Ruth (Kevin) Slack, Rebecca (Gregory) Pfundstein, and Briege (Sebastian) Khuen; and her twenty-four grandchildren. She is preceded in death by her parents, John and Martha O'Keefe, and by her brother Roy, who died in Vietnam, and whose letters home Mary edited and published as Soul of a Soldier .

On November 21, the Feast of the Presentation of Mary, our Mary was presented by the angels to our Blessed Mother, who presented her to Her Son, and all her tears were turned into joy. May she rest in peace.

Grateful for having shared her life are her husband Michael; her children, Jon (Marie) Daly, CA, Christopher (Lisa), Canada, Ruth (Kevin) Slack, MI, Rebecca (Gregory) Pfundstein, Garretson, SD, Briege (Sebastian) Khuen, Austria; 24 grandchildren; her siblings, George (Pam) O'Keefe, ME, John (Elizabeth) Cavanaugh-O'Keefe, MD, Katharine O'Keefe, WI, Emily (Mark) Koczela, WI, Jane (Anthony) Meyerhofer, VA, Lucy (Peter) Hancock, Ecuador, and Rachel (Steve Bohlin) O'Keefe, NM; and a host of other relatives and friends. www.millerfh.com