Leslie M. Nordin

Leslie was baptized into the Catholic Church as a young girl alongside her mother and two sisters. Her faith guided and sustained her throughout her life. With a gift of hospitality and a servant’s heart, her home was always open and there was always room for one more at the table. Helping others brought her joy.

She was born August 8, 1931, in New York. She graduated from Trinity College in Washington, D.C. A job at El Paso Natural Gas took her to Texas, where she met and married Kenneth E. Nordin, her beloved husband of forty-five years. While raising six children, Leslie was a prolific freelance writer and published in numerous magazines and newspapers in Chicago and Kansas City. She had a long career as vice president of marketing at the Heart of America United Way.

Leslie was a Eucharistic Minister and Lector at Cure of Ars for many years, and later at Santa Marta, the Catholic retirement community where she lived the past 5 years. She sponsored many adults preparing to join the Catholic Church through the RCIA program. Never idle in retirement, she went on a mission trip to Guatemala and wrote for The Leaven.

Leslie is survived by her children: Cynthia Markland (Don); Jim; Susan Motley (Marvin); Robyn Stowell (Michael); Robert (Julie); Jill Lyons (Steve); fifteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren; and her sister Jody Merrill Foster.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Ken; parents John Merrill and Ruth Merrill Fogarty, and her “Daddy” Henry Fogarty; and her sister Mary Merrill Brintle.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Sept. 15, 2012, at 10:00 a.m. at Cure of Ars Catholic Church, 9401 Mission Rd., in Leawood. Burial to follow in Resurrection Cemetery.