On January 8, 2023, Mary Corrine (Kirsch) Goldsmith passed away peacefully in her sleep after a long earthly journey. She was 96 years old.

Mary was born on September 6, 1926, in Stanton Township of St. Croix County, Wisconsin. She attended elementary school in Stanton and high school in New Richmond until her senior year when her family moved to Amery, and she graduated from Amery High School. Her parents owned Kirsch’s Recreational Parlor in Amery (now Club 53). She frequently talked about how she had to help set up the bowling pins by hand from behind the alleys as this was how it was done back in her day. She saved all the money she earned and bought herself a Harley Davidson motorcycle, which she loved and rode everywhere, including more than once to Montana.

She married Glenn W. Goldsmith on July 10, 1947, at St. Joseph’s in Amery, Wisconsin and spent her life in Amery, raising eight children, and teaching for the Amery School District for 25 years after graduating from the University of Wisconsin - River Falls. She also obtained her Master’s degree at UWRF while teaching.

She loved traveling and went to Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks numerous times, always taking children and grandchildren with her. She went to Maine, Oregon, New York, Florida, and Hawaii several times, as well as many other states. She also loved her travel club trips to Branson, Missouri, with her friends. She traveled to England several times, where she still had relatives, and France, Scotland, and Germany. She spent many years going to Mexico every January to escape the cold Wisconsin winters, and to spend time with her only sibling, her brother Bill.

More than anything, she loved books and reading, having read ‘over a million’ in her lifetime. Later in life she found enjoyment in her card games on the computer and jigsaw puzzles of every different kind.  She, and her cat, spent her final years in Big Lake, Minnesota with her eldest son, Gary, and his partner Alex, where she was lovingly cared for.

Mary is survived by her eight children, Gary (Alex Stolitza), Larry (Bettylou), Joseph (Sandra), Christine Hendricks, Susan Hegg (Bill), Elizabeth, Mary K. (Mickey) (Don Fansler), and Ann Christenson, 18 grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by an infant son, David Robert, her parents, John and Maude Kirsch, and her brother, William Kirsch.

A visitation will be held at Williamson White funeral home in Amery on Wednesday, January 18, 2023, from 4:00 to 7:00pm. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at St. Joseph’s Church in Amery, on Thursday, January 19, 2023, at 11:00am with a visitation one hour prior to the mass. A reception at the church and interment at the Saint Bridgets Cemetery in Stanton Township will follow.

Last Update: Jan 16, 2023 1:51 pm CST