MaryAnne Wittkowske

MaryAnne Wittkowske, 84, of Franklin, Wisconsin, passed away peacefully, surrounded by her family, early Saturday morning, September 19, 2026, one day before her 85th birthday.

Born September 20, 1941, near Little Black, Wisconsin, MaryAnne was the youngest of seven children of the late Salmer and Angeline Scholz Olson. She spent her early years on the family’s dairy farm. After her father’s death, her mother continued running the farm on her own for many years—plowing the fields with a team of horses and milking the herd by hand. MaryAnne and her siblings attended a two-room country schoolhouse, taking a direct one-mile path across the fields when they were clear and the creek wasn’t too full. The walk home was always a full two miles along the road, because that was the way their friends walked. When MaryAnne was eleven, the family left the farm and moved into Stetsonville to live with her maternal grandparents. As a teenager, she and her mother moved to Milwaukee so MaryAnne could attend high school. She went on to graduate from Divine Savior Holy Angels and MATC in Milwaukee.

On May 21, 1960, MaryAnne was united in marriage to Anthony C. “Tony” Wittkowske at St. Michael’s Catholic Church. Their story began a few years earlier when MaryAnne met Tony’s father, Clarence, the city bus driver on the route she took to Divine Savior Holy Angels High School. Clarence invited her to attend St. Michael’s, where she soon caught the eye of his son, Tony, a member of the church’s Ushers Club. Tony took particular delight in escorting MaryAnne and her mother to their seats—much to the chagrin of any boyfriend who happened to be accompanying her. That persistence apparently paid off. MaryAnne and Tony went on to share 64 years of marriage before Tony preceded her in death on June 14, 2024.

MaryAnne spent more than 17 years as Emergency Services Director for the Milwaukee Christian Center, advocating for families throughout Milwaukee County. The food pantry she ran fed thousands of people each year, while her interventions on behalf of individuals and families helped hundreds more navigate government agencies and connect with services that could change—and sometimes save—their lives. She also served on numerous social-service boards, panels, and advisory councils.

One of her favorite stories from those years involved taking Archbishop Rembert Weakland to task over what she believed the Catholic Church should be doing to help people in need. He challenged her: “Well, what are YOU going to do?” It was one of many spirited discussions between the two over the years. MaryAnne had known and worked with Rembert since he became Archbishop of Milwaukee in 1977, and their friendship certainly never stopped this feisty, five-foot Norwegian from standing ten toes down and telling him exactly what she thought. They remained friends for the rest of his life.

MaryAnne’s answer, throughout her life, was rarely to talk about it. She showed up and did something about it—usually with Tony beside her and a station wagon full of their own children, foreign exchange students, and assorted others who had been “voluntold” to help.

That instinct to make room for others extended far beyond her professional life.

For many years, MaryAnne served as president of the Oak Creek chapter of American Field Service (AFS), the international student exchange organization. Even with half a dozen children of her own at home, the Wittkowske house became the chapter’s interim home, where exchange students might stay for a few days or several months while transitioning between permanent placements. She and Tony also welcomed several long-term exchange students who lived with the family for a semester or a year.

Over the years, MaryAnne opened her home to hundreds of young people from across the United States and around the world. She and Tony taught their children the true meaning of “build a bigger table,” creating a loving, nurturing place where teenagers could experience life in southeastern Wisconsin and, more importantly, know they had a place where they belonged. Two of those young women became daughters in every meaningful sense of the word and have remained part of the family for 48 and 35 years. And just as MaryAnne welcomed the world into her home, she encouraged her own children to venture out into it; two spent a year abroad as exchange students in Chile and Mexico.

MaryAnne was an avid gardener and lifelong nature enthusiast. The Franklin home where she and Tony lived for nearly 54 years was perhaps the greatest beneficiary of her green thumb. She planted hundreds of trees, flowers, shrubs, vegetables, and other plants; tended and harvested the earth’s bounty for her family; and passed her love of gardening on to some of her children and grandchildren. Others, not so much.

She fed hundreds of birds and always kept both a field guide and binoculars nearby to identify whichever species happened to be visiting that week. The property accumulated its own cast of long-term residents: a groundhog living in a pipe connected to the long-abandoned septic system; a mated pair of kestrels, which MaryAnne steadfastly referred to as “the Peregrines”; generations of squirrels whose antics at their feeding stations—and larcenous raids on the bird feeders—provided endless entertainment; and the chipmunks.

The chipmunks were another matter.

MaryAnne waged a decades-long battle against the tiny marauders who dug through her flower beds, periodically threatening to acquire a bazooka to bring their reign of destruction to an end. Thankfully, as a lifelong pacifist, she never followed through.

MaryAnne also loved to travel. She took her children and, later, her grandchildren on countless camping adventures throughout the United States. For much of the 1960s and ’70s, when most of her brothers and sisters—and more than 40 nieces and nephews—still lived in or near Wisconsin, the extended family spent the months from Easter through Labor Day camping together.

Family reunions, Thanksgivings, and other gatherings still inevitably produce stories from those adventures: the time they nearly burned down a nationally protected virgin forest in an unfortunate kerosene incident; the more frightening memory of a serious fall suffered by one of her children; and countless other escapades. Even when the adventures became scary, the humor, love, and resilience of the family and friends who experienced them with her continued to shine through.

Over the years, MaryAnne traveled throughout the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii, Central America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Whether visiting family, returning to favorite places, or discovering somewhere entirely new, she remained endlessly curious about local flora and fauna, history, culture, and people.

One of her most treasured journeys was a two-week trip to Norway, the homeland of her paternal grandparents, with Tony, her sister Gretchen, and her brother-in-law Clete. They traveled from Oslo to Ålesund to Tromsø, visited the actual homes where her grandparents had been born, and met relatives from both sides of her paternal family.

Standing behind her grandfather’s childhood home, looking across the fjord that her great-grandfather had once rowed to bring his new bride home—making the crossing twice, once for his wife and once more for the cow that was part of her dowry—MaryAnne reflected on what the journey meant to her:

“I’m so grateful for this trip because it has given me such a sense of place in this very big world.”

MaryAnne’s curiosity extended to nearly everything. She was an avid bowler for many years, participating in leagues throughout Milwaukee with friends and family and competing in tournaments around Wisconsin. She was an avid reader and lifelong learner who loved handicrafts, artisanal work, and fine art.

A consummate crocheter and knitter, MaryAnne seemingly always had a ginormous box in the “breezeway” (read: mudroom) filled with handmade hats, mittens, and socks. She was also an accomplished seamstress, and her creations appeared at weddings, christenings, proms, homecomings, and countless other family occasions over the decades—including the matching family vests of the 1990s.

While definitive proof has yet to surface, MaryAnne may also have been responsible for introducing the world to matching family Christmas pajamas. The family requests that all photographic evidence be mercifully destroyed.

MaryAnne is survived by her eight children, Heather (Cal Seng) Adams of Vernon, Michelle (Michael) Kudlewski of Big Bend, Anthony Wittkowske Jr. of Franklin, Aaron Wittkowske of Muskego, A.J. (Regina) Wittkowske of Dyer, Indiana, Gabriella Esponda Lopez of Chiapas, Mexico, Marguerite Stitz of Wausau, and Andrew Wittkowske of DeForest; her 12 grandchildren, Michael (Melisa), Lia (Ben), Emily, Maddie, Kyle, Michael (Liz), Nique, TJ, Morgan, Declan, Monica (Veronica), and Alyson; and her 17 great-grandchildren, Gwen, Owen, Violet, Mackenzie, Madison, Mason, Chloe, Matthew, Ethan, Taylor, Charlotte, Lillian, Max, Robbie, Osiris, Daenerys, and Elena.

She is further survived by her sister, Gretchen (Clete) Hansen of Madison; sisters-in-law Diane Olson of Berlin, Sheri Olson of Colorado, Darlene Bairaktaris of Elk Grove Village, Illinois, and Karen (Ken) Szuta of Milwaukee; and numerous nieces, nephews, great-nieces, great-nephews, other relatives, and friends.

In addition to her parents, Salmer and Angeline, and her beloved husband, Tony, MaryAnne was preceded in death by her daughter, Monica Anne; her son-in-law, Larry Stitz; her siblings Salmer Jr., Richard, Patricia, Lois (Bill), David, and infant Peter; her brother-in-law Tom, and many other family members and friends whose lives intertwined with hers over nearly 85 years.

After Tony’s death, MaryAnne kept his cremated remains in their living room, where, as she put it, she could “keep an eye on him.” After 64 years of marriage and another two years with Tony never very far away, they now take their next step together.

MaryAnne and Tony’s final resting place is together at Prairie Home Cemetery in Waukesha, in a natural burial amid a Wisconsin prairie of native grasses and wildflowers—prairie and butterfly milkweed, wild indigo, blazing star, many varieties of native phlox, goldenrod, and dozens of other native species that provide habitat for eight native bee species, butterflies, dragonflies, birds, and other wildlife. It is a fitting place for two people who shared nearly a lifetime together—and especially for a woman who spent hers planting things, feeding things, watching things grow, and making room for life around her.

A Celebration of Life for MaryAnne will be held October 18, 2026. Time and location will be announced. Family and friends will be invited to gather together to remember MaryAnne and celebrate the extraordinarily full life she shared with so many.

The family would like to extend its heartfelt gratitude to the nurses and staff of Compassus Hospice for the loving care, kindness, and support they gave MaryAnne and her family.

Olson Funeral Home & Cremation Service has been entrusted with MaryAnne’s arrangements. The Wittkowske family is especially grateful to James Olson for the extraordinary love, dignity, and care he has shown both MaryAnne and Tony.

MaryAnne spent her life making room—for children, for strangers, for students far from home, for people who needed help, for gardens and birds and wayward animals, and always for family.

She built a bigger table.