Mary Lou's service will be available via livestream by Faith Temple Church: https://www.facebook.com/FaithTempleSD/live_videos
For those joining in celebrating Mary Lou's life online, her service folder is available in digital format here: Mary Lou's Service Folder

Mary Lou Kunnari, 73, of Sioux Falls, South Dakota peacefully left this life for Eternal Life on Monday, March 10, 2025 at Avera Heart Hospital in Sioux Falls. A memorial service will be held at 11:00 am on Saturday, April 26, 2025 at Faith Temple Church (2121 W 33rd St., Sioux Falls, SD). Mary Lou will be interred at the South Dakota Veteran Cemetery at a later date.

Mary Lou was born on August 5, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois to her father, Jose G. Gomez, and her mother, Manuela "Nellie" (Moralez) Gomez. Mary Lou's parents moved to Los Angeles, California in the early 1950's where they raised Mary Lou and her two younger brothers, Joe and Jimmy.

Mary Lou attended Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles, California from 1964-68 before attending El Rancho High School in Pico Rivera, California in 1968, graduating in 1969. She went on to attend East LA College part-time in 1969 until 1980 while working full-time as an administrative assistant at LA General Hospital. Mary Lou later attended Minnesota State Univ. – Mankato in 1980, earning her Bachelor Degree of Education, specific to math and physical education studies in 1983. In 1986, she then began working as an administrative assistant at a regional office for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources until 1988 while her husband completed his college degree.

In 1975, Mary Lou met John Kunnari who worked with her brother Joe Gomez, while they were Active Duty in the U.S. Army stationed at Letterman Army Medical Center, Presidio of San Francisco, California. The couple had a long-distance four-year courtship through hundreds of letters and long-distance calls with Mary Lou travelling to Minnesota or John travelling to LA to visit each other each summer. Mary Lou and John were married on May 10, 1980, in Austin, Minnesota. They moved to New Ulm, MN where they lived from 1980-88. In 1988, Mary Lou and John moved to Plymouth, Minnesota for employment opportunities later moving into their own home in Crystal, Minnesota in 1989, where she loved to plant and care for her beautiful flowers all around the yard. For the next 31 years, Mary Lou worked as an elementary school teacher for the Robbinsdale School District. She taught her students the values that she was raised with: pay attention to their teacher, be respectful, and work hard on anything they were working on.

After retirement in 2020, Mary Lou and John moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota in April 2022, where they both enjoyed and loved (and were loved by) their Faith Temple Church family of fellow believers in Christ and other close friends met through involvement in South Dakota Right to Life, Life Defense Fund, and Faith Temple's weekly "Food Giveaway" in Sioux Falls.

Mary Lou and fellow Life Defense Fund volunteers worked tirelessly throughout 2023 and 2024 to educate the people across South Dakota in the "Decline to Sign" / "No on Amendment G" efforts to preserve the lives of the unborn and mothers. One of the co-founders of Life Defense Fund, Leslee Unruh said about Mary Lou, "I loved her spunk, and the power of our Lord Shone so bright in Mary Lou. First time I met her I couldn't believe how all that power could come out of that little lovely woman!"

In October 2023, a week after she had heard from her doctor that her cancer had returned, Mary Lou was at the Life Defense prayer room and two ladies asked if there was anything Mary Lou needed prayers for. She told them. While praying for Mary Lou one lady stopped and said, "I hear [from the Lord] "Debts cancelled'" and "Radical Miracle!". Two weeks later, Mary had repeat testing at Mayo Clinic and the reports came back "no cancer".  Two subsequent follow-up appointments at Mayo in 2024 came back the same. "Radical Miracle" indeed! Thank you, Lord Jesus!

Mary Lou has always enjoyed travelling, sewing, cross-stitching, many types of craft work, and trying out new recipes. She won three ribbons at the 2024 Turner County Fair for cross-stitch works she made. Mary always loved her four-legged "kids" with tails, her dogs that she has rescued. The first dog this modern day "Florence Nightengale" rescued was a little stray Pekinese dog, "Petey", she found injured by a car on the street while visiting her family in LA and brought him home with her. Since then, many more fortunate dogs (Lady, "Sweet" Molly, "Big Boy" Shiloh, "Kissy" Katie, Cindy, Baylee, Dixie) have been loved and blessed to be adopted into Mary Lou's care.

Mary Lou has always been passionate and tenacious about protecting vulnerable people. She's highly respected and loved by all who've known her personally. She loved her parents dearly, Jose Gomez and Manuela "Nellie" Gomez, who are deceased; as well as her surviving husband, John Kunnari; and younger brothers Joe Gomez of Minneapolis, MN and Jimmy Gomez of the Los Angeles area.

-

Thank you to all who've reached out in love and support before and since Mary Lou left this life expressing how much she is loved, respected and will be missed. I, John, am the one who has been so blessed by our Lord Jesus to have known, loved, and been loved by Mary Lou the past 50 years and shared a wonderful life of almost 45 years of marriage to my Sweet Mary Lou. The song "Mary Lou" is so true about her to me from the first day we met… "Hello Mary Lou, Good-bye Heart!"

During Mary Lou's final days in this life, she prayed many times aloud praising God, such as, "God is good!"… "God's grace is sufficient… His power is made perfect in weakness"… "Help me to hear what you want me to hear Lord".  We know God's Angels were standing guard around her, ready to take her to be with the Lord once she took her last breath.

I, Mary Lou's husband John, was with her praying and telling how much I've always loved her, since the day we first met. She quietly left just before noon on Monday, March 10, 2025. Surely, Mary Lou could say, " I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing". (2 Timothy 4:7-8)

Peace to you dear Mary Lou…