MARY ALICE O’CONNOR:
A Life of Seeking Truth
With deep gratitude, the Dominican Friars
of the Province of St. Joseph honor the life
of a dear friend and benefactor, Mary
Alice O’Connor, 1929-2015. For over
forty years, Mary Alice was a faithful
parishioner at the Dominican church of
St. Mary’s in New Haven, Connecticut,
and a personal friend to many of the
friars. BlackFriars spoke with her son,
Kiernan O’Connor—a speaker, author,
and educator on wealth and legacy
planning—about his remarkable mother
and her decision to bequeath her IRA to
the Dominican Friars.
How did your mother come to know
the Friars?
My mother was orthodox in her faith and
extremely well read—she was reading St.
Augustine’s Confessions on her deathbed.
I’m the youngest of nine and all our
middle names are either Dominican or
Jesuit saints (mine is Aquinas). When we
moved to Connecticut from the Midwest
in 1972, the parishes were in turmoil after
Vatican II, and it was a very difficult time
for my mother. As soon as she learned
that St. Mary’s was a Dominican parish,
she started attending daily mass there.
So that became your family parish?
Yes. My mother was a great lover of
classical music and had a very
sophisticated taste in art, so everything
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about St. Mary’s appealed to her. It
became the heart of her life for her last
40 years. As it turns out, Dominican
friars make great dinner guests, so we
always had them in our home growing
up. In my mother’s last 10 years, she
moved within walking distance of St.
Mary’s, which helped because of her
bad knees. After having two artificial
knees put in, she would spend hours in
Adoration there.
How did she decide to leave her IRA to the
Dominican Friars?
My father, who managed the finances,
passed away in 2013. As a wealth advisor
specializing in legacy planning, I was the
most qualified in the family to help my
mother. Looking at her IRA, I realized
that, with nine children, the single biggest
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