Date of Birth:
Monday, August 8, 1938
Date of Death:
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Age:
87 years old

Margaret “Peg” Eileen Farrell

Margaret (Eileen) Farrell was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa on August 8, 1938, to George and Mary Tierney. She and her family moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado during her senior year of high school, a move that this young women thought would be the end of her world.  But she survived and that year, graduated from her high school.

She entered the nursing program at Mercy Hospital School of Nursing in Denver, Colorado. After completing her training, she decided to enter the religious life in a convent in Omaha, Nebraska, during which time she took her state board examinations for a nursing license. As in a scene from “The Sound of Music”, she was informed at dinner that she would call herself a registered nurse. She soon found that the religious life was not her calling and left the convent, again much like “The Sound of Music”, at night escorted to the train depot by two nuns. She returned to her family home for a brief time, then set off on a new life.

She took a nursing position at Minneapolis Swedish Hospital, which no longer exists. As a young women riding the bus at night from downtown Minneapolis to her apartment, she realized she needed her own transportation, so she bought an older little green two-door Chevrolet. She worked at Swedish Hospital for but a short time, but she always remembered that, at the end or beginning of a shift on the medical floor, she and the other nurses would gather in the halls of the hospital and sing Lutheran hymns. She said she was expecting to be hit by a bolt of heavenly lightning. Now, many of those same songs are being sung in Catholic Churches today.

After a short time, she left Swedish for a position in the Intensive Care Unit at Minneapolis’ St. Mary’s Hospital. It was there that she was to meet a guy who eventually would be a part of her life. She was assigned to care for an elderly woman in her late 80’s with heart issues, she was attending to her patient and looked up to see a visitor at the door of the room. Peg always remembered how impressive that visitor looked, with her snow-white hair and dark blue suit. That women in the doorway would eventually become her mother-in-law. It wasn’t long after that she was a assigned another patient with critical issues. That patient who would soon introduce her to one of his sons. That son, Pat, was smitten by that beautiful woman, with her red hair and blazing white uniform. (Pat wouldn’t know for several years that that red hair came from a bottle.) Following a way too long two years of courtship, that young man would become her loving husband for the next sixty-three years.

In the years that followed, Peg and Pat would have three sons; Tim, Joe, and Mark, two of whom, Joe and Mark, eventually have families of their own. The family moved to Rochester when Pat took a position there as Chief of Police for the city. Peg later was employed by Mayo Clinic in several research staff positions, in which she found rewarding enjoyment. Her son, Joe, would become a firefighter for the city of Rochester, and the youngest son, Mark, would become a police officer for the city of Blaine, while son Tim would take a records management position in the Kansas City, Mo. Area. Tragedy would strike the family when Joe was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. (A particularly cruel disease that had earlier claimed the life of one of Peg’s sisters-in-law, Pat’s siter Kate.) But she and her family, and Joe’s family, chose to carry on with their lives while cherishing the memories that survived.

In later years, she and Pat were fortunately able to enjoy traveling. Their early adventures took them on two great adventures to Greece, Turkey, Italy, France, Spain all on a four-masted sailing ships, and of course a couple trips to the homeland, Ireland. In more recent years, they would enjoy a Viking Danube River cruise, and Viking ocean cruises through the Caribbean and then the Panama Canal, and lastly, a Viking cruise from Iceland to Norway. Pat was in preliminary stages of exploring another sailing adventure, but that was not to be.

Peg was very proud of her Irish heritage, coming from a string of Callahans, McTigues, O’Deas. Her heritage was all Irish; and she never missed an opportunity to remind her husband that his lineage was altered by him being quarter Luxemburg – Oh Lord, how did that happen!

She was an exceptional and wonderful wife, a loving mother, grandmother and a great friend.

A Memorial Mass will be held at 11:00am Wednesday, February 25, 2026 at Holy Spirit Catholic Church. Visitation will be one hour prior to the service on Wednesday. Burial will be in Resurrection Cemetery in Mendota Heights, MN at a later date.