The Daily Gazette, Sterling-Rock Falls, Illinois

December 7, 1953 - Monday, pg 2 col 2

 

 

 

 

Funeral services will be held at the Trouth Funeral Home for Leo Fitzgerald at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, and requiem mass celebrated for the repose of his soul at 9 a.m. in St. Mary Catholic Church.  Burial will take place in Calvary Cemetery.

 

The rosary will be said by members of the Knights of Columbus at 8 p.m. Monday and by the Holy Name Society at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

 

David Leo Fitzgerald was born near Lansing, Allamakee County, Iowa, Dec. 6, 1896, the eighth child in a family of 11 chilcren (two of whom died in infancy).  His death was the first in the family in 60 years.

 

He is survived by his widow, Margaret Scanlon Fitzgeraldd and four sons and four daughters, also Patricia Scanlon Andrus of Oakes, ND., who was reared by him.  The children are Robert, student naval aviator, Kingsville, Tex.;  Joseph, serving with the Navy Seabees in the Philippines;  Philip, at home;  John, student at St. John's University, Collegeville, Minn.;  Mary Patricia, RN, Mercy Hospital, Devil's Lake, N.D.;  Margaret (Peggy) secretary, Mercy Hospital;  Barbara and Ann, students at St. Mary's Academy, Devil's Lake.

 

The aged parents, Dennis L. and Comfort Jackson Fitzgerald and the following borthers and sisters also mourn his loss:  Earle, Raymond and Maurice, Sterling;  Greg, Parkston, S.D.;  Maud Scott and Alice Aldrich, Sterling;  Monica Wahl, Glendale, Calif., and Florence Detloff, Chicago.

 

The deceased spend his boyhood in Sterling and completed the elementary school training at Lincoln School.  He spent several years farming near Spencer, S.D. before he went to Chicago where he became a civil engineer.  He married Margaret Jane Scanlon of Rosscommon, Ireland, in that city Oct. 12, 1925. To this union eight children were born.  Mr. Fitzgerald brought his family to Rock Falls in 1944 and engaged in the trucking business for three years when he purchased land near Oakes, N.D., and moved the family to their present farm there.  He was stricken with a heart attack on Monday evening, Dec. 3. and died the following Thursday at St. Joseph's Hospital, Oakes.

 

Leo Fitzgerald was a quiet, unassuming person, a devout Catholic and a devoted husband and father.  His death ends a life of unselfish service.

 

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