Mary A. Brown

Mary (Birling, Peters) Brown age 78, died peacefully surrounded by the love of her family on Sunday, November 17, 2019, after her battle with stage 4 lung cancer. She was born on July 3, 1941, in Neenah, the first child of Alex and Elsie (Hammes) Birling. Mary was married and later divorced Donald Peters from Seymour, together they had 4 daughters. On July 17, 1985, Mary was blessed to marry the love of her life, Richard Brown from Iowa, and the family increased with 3 more children. Mary had a wonderful heart and very generous with her love for everyone. In her younger years, Mary raised 4 girls and taught each of them so many important things, like volunteering- well actually the girls volunteered their mom more often! She was always helping at Badger Elementary and was one of the founders of the PTO. She was always making treats for the school and helped with fundraising. While married to Don they built a very successful Fireworks business and she still found time to help others. In 2011, Mary retired from Target but still got together for lunch once a month with the friends she made while working there. Mary was an avid reader, sometimes completing an entire novel in one day. She would share her books with anyone that wanted and before she died, she made sure everyone had a chance to grab some of the books she would leave without reading. For the past 8 years she lived at the Fox Valley Lutheran home on Linwood Ave where she made so many good friends. Mary will be greatly missed by the many friends she made while living there. She loved spending time with her family, especially her grandchildren and recently great-grandchildren. Mary was a wonderful cook and was very well known for making some of the best potato salad and cream puffs that were way better than the Wisconsin State Fair! In the last couple months of her life her bucket list was complete with the publishing of her very own cookbook the “Grandma Mary’s Legacy of Love”, cookbook is available for all!

There are many people that will greatly miss Mary, she is survived by her children Sandy (Gary) Stoffel, Linda (Dan) Manteufel, Peggy (Kevin )Mason, Bonita Peters (Jay McCarty), Steven (Anne) Brown, Mike (Margo) Brown, Kris Brown (Darren Perry), grandchildren Nicole Meyers, Nikki Manteufel, Courtney (Tommy) Yang, Alex Malueg (Marta Mathis), Gabriel (Kelly) Brown, Joseph Brown (Shannon) Mariah Brown, Matthew Brown, Mikayla Brown, Maria Brown and great-grandchildren Maya, Jaxon, Dahvia and Zeppelin. She is further survived by her siblings Cathy Westerman, Mike (Jean) Birling, Ron (Jane) Birling and Betty Harris.

Mary was preceded in death by and so very excited to see her wonderful husband Richard Brown, parents, brothers Tom & Bill, grandson Joshua, granddaughter Felicia along with many other family and friends.

A Mass of Christian Burial for Mary will be held at 11:00 AM on Monday, December 9, 2019, at St. Mary Catholic Church, 312 S. State St., Appleton. Friends and family may visit at the church from 9:00 AM until the time of the service. Please come to celebrate this amazing woman.