Margaret McNally

1929 - 2015

Margaret Kenny McNally, 85, Chicago Mother of 10, Including White House Aide, Oprah Producer, Carrier Pilot, Hollywood Actress, Spine Surgeon

Chicago, IL. Mar. 11th: Margaret Kenny McNally, 85, an energetic red-haired Chicago beauty, for over 60 years the wife of one of the nation's most respected plastic surgeons, and a Gold Star mother who used what one magazine called a ""fail-safe formula for success"" to raise 10 children who have achieved national prominence in an array of remarkably different fields across the U.S. – including politics, television, the military, Hollywood, medicine, business, and law – died at home beside her husband and family on Wednesday, March 11th as a result of complications from congestive heart failure and old age.

By all accounts a combination of German discipline, native talent, and Irish charm made Margaret a potent force, and through the work of her husband and her children she became connected with some of the great events and personalities of her times. As a result her words, her humor and her wisdom were often amplified as they made their way into Presidential speeches, Hollywood sound stages, and Oprah Winfrey scripts.

For years she managed the medical practice of her husband, Dr. Randall E. McNally, a legendary Chicago surgeon, former Air Force doctor, and longtime cut man for the Chicago Blackhawks. The 10 children they raised include a veteran of three White Houses, the Executive Producer for Oprah Winfrey, a military hero and aircraft carrier pilot in the United States Navy and Marine Corps, a television, film and Broadway actress, and a University of Chicago spinal surgeon. ""Margaret's life is a testament to the awesome power of motherhood,"" said Father Jack Wall, for many years the Pastor of Old St. Pat's Church in Chicago. ""And how one woman's talent and love can be a force for good, and leave a large and lasting impact on the world.""

A native of West Bend, Wisconsin, Margaret attended Mount Mary College in Milwaukee and in 1952 was graduated from St. Louis University (SLU). As a college senior, she overlapped for one year at SLU with her future husband, a first-year medical student there who was a 1951 graduate of the University of Notre Dame. They were married at Holy Angels Church in West Bend on June 20, 1953, a day so hot that bridesmaids fainted and it broke county records.

Lessons for Life from Blackhawk Legends

Her husband practiced plastic and reconstructive surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago for nearly 50 years, many of them in partnership with Margaret. Dr. McNally was Chairman of the Department of Plastic Surgery and also served as Associate Dean of Surgery at Rush Medical College. During some of the glory years of the Chicago Blackhawks in the 1960s and 1970s, Dr. McNally was the on-call cut doctor for many of the facial lacerations and broken jaws, noses and cheekbones of that era. In a 2010 Chicago Tribune feature on Dr. McNally, columnist John Kass wrote about the high regard with which Dr. McNally was held by Blackhawk legends like Bobby Hull, Keith Magnuson, and Stan Mikita.

The column quotes Mikita's maxim: "No matter how hard you get hit, you get up and take your next shift on the ice."" (""Hockey doctors share tales from the ice: No injury too severe to keep player out of the game,"" Chicago Tribune, June 6, 2010.) The 10 McNally children were raised on those maxims, as their parents taught that in life, as in hockey, sometimes you have to play while hurt. They said: You put on the pads. You take the hit. And you move on.

Their first child, a girl, Anne, was born on April 10, 1954, the first of what many call "Irish triplets" -- three babies where each was born less than a year apart. During the next 14 years, Margaret McNally gave birth to 10 children, five girls and five boys.

North Shore magazine called it ""the amazing north suburban family of Dr. and Mrs. Randall McNally"" and said that ""all 10 were always the most handsome, the brightest, and the best."" (""Northbrook's RISING STAR: Jean McNally's success as an actress was inspired by her large, high-achieving family,"" North Shore magazine, Feb. 1988.) Margaret raised the 10 in a rambling house in the woods in Northbrook, Illinois. They spent summers amongst 36 cousins in the family compound where she had grown up on Big Cedar Lake, and later at the art deco home that Margaret restored on Lake Geneva, both in Wisconsin.

In what was reported as a school record and a ""singular legacy,"" all 10 graduated from Glenbrook North High School (Northbrook Star, June 26, 1986). They included three Homecoming Queens, student council leaders, varsity captains and newspaper editors, and Margaret's children went on to attend Yale, Stanford, Dartmouth, Northwestern, the University of Chicago, Illinois, Wisconsin, Marquette, Boston University, DePaul, the London School of Economics and Notre Dame, where her husband had been a star drummer in the Fighting Irish Marching Band. Neither Margaret nor her husband ever reviewed, edited, or even looked at any college application or essay.

According to the North Shore magazine profile, ""All the children agree"" that their success was the result of ""the high standards set and lived by both their parents."" Margaret told them that it was not their duty to bring home big grades, big jobs or big trophies, but rather, that they each had an obligation ""to use whatever gifts God gave you to the absolute best of your ability.""

White House, Oprah, Carrier Jets, Hollywood

The 10 children she raised went on to attain national recognition in an unusual variety of high-profile positions. A son, Edward, a trial lawyer at Kasowitz Benson in New York, has been described in the press as ""larger-than-life"" and has had what the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called ""a storied legal career."" In response to the Sept. 11th attacks, the President called him to the White House to serve under Gov. Tom Ridge as the nation's first General Counsel for homeland security and counter-terrorism, where he helped create the Department of Homeland Security. Edward's service also included appointments as Senior Associate Counsel to the President, as the United States Attorney in Southern Illinois, Assistant U.S. Attorney under Rudy Giuliani in Manhattan, as the District Attorney in Anchorage, Alaska, and as America's first Luce Scholar in China. He has participated in clashes involving epic events such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the grand jury investigation of President Bill Clinton, Tiananmen Square, both Gulf Wars, Bernie Madoff, and the largest criminal antitrust investigation in history, and has represented such iconic clients as the Village Voice, PepsiCo and Ford Motor Co.

Earlier, as a White House speechwriter under President George H.W. Bush at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he traveled the world on Air Force One and drafted the President's address to the Nation at the end of the first Gulf War. He was also known for Barbara Bush's watershed speech on diversity and choice at Wellesley College. NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw called it ""the best commencement speech I've ever heard;"" Dan Rather at CBS declared it was "the best speech made by any person connected with any summit."" Edward credits both Barbara Bush, and Margaret McNally, for the core message about putting people first.

Margaret's youngest daughter, Tara Margaret Montgomery, a mother of five, serves as the Executive Producer for Oprah Winfrey and as Executive Vice President of Harpo Studios. Over the course of almost two decades Tara has produced ground-breaking, award-winning broadcasts on subjects such as domestic violence, racism, school shootings, and the Holocaust.

During her service with The Oprah Winfrey Show – the highest rated talk show in television history and a global phenomenon that aired in 150 countries – Tara produced broadcasts in 48 states and on five continents, from backstage at the Oscars to a tent city in Haiti, including shows with each of the past four Presidents and First Ladies, and virtually every famous actor, singer or newsmaker from Whitney Houston and Lance Armstrong to Christopher Reeve and Beyonce.

But Tara says that, even more, what she appreciates most are the legacies of her mother's common touch and her deep compassion for the pain and suffering of others. Tara said, ""Mom always said to be kind to people, you never know what someone else is going through."" Tara recognizes the impact of Margaret's lessons, and says that she is most proud of the hundreds of broadcasts with ""everyday women like Mom, who told their stories and empowered Oprah's viewers to live better, safer, healthier, more fun, spiritual, and whole lives.""

Margaret's sixth child, Lt. Cmdr. Rand McNally, call sign "Atlas", was also inspired by his mother's belief in service to others. Rand was a graduate of Notre Dame and Stanford Law School who served as an aircraft carrier pilot in the United States Marines and the Navy in the Pacific and the Persian Gulf. He died on April 5, 1994, when his A-6 Intruder went down and he ejected into San Francisco Bay. Observers believe his last act in this life was to delay ejecting in order to steer his stricken aircraft away from a sailboat with two young boys aboard.

Atlas was a supremely gifted pilot. A YouTube video of an earlier crash landing that he survived – at night, into a steel barrier, on an aircraft carrier pitching in 60-foot seas in the North Pacific – has received over 100,000 views. His commander called it ""the most demanding, remarkable and perfectly executed carrier landing of the decade."" His fellow pilots praised him as ""one of the best."" ("Pilot Killed In Crash As Future Took Off," Chicago Tribune, April 7, 1994.)

At the time of his death Rand was a pilot for Delta Airlines, and six weeks away from being married. In an October 31, 1999 retrospective about the crash, the Chicago Tribune called Atlas a ""hero … an extraordinary man from an extraordinary Irish-Catholic family of 10 children,"" who ""had lived a storybook life."" The President of his Stanford Law School class, Christy Haubegger, said ""This was a class of 170 over-achievers, and he was our hero.""

Margaret's fourth daughter, McNally Sagal, is an accomplished Broadway, Hollywood and television actress and screenwriter and cast member of the FX network's breakout hit, Sons of Anarchy. Less than a year out of college Sagal appeared on Broadway as the female lead in Amadeus, and during one memorable week in the late 1990s she appeared on Monday as a guest star on Allie McBeal, and on Wednesday in the series finale for Seinfeld.

Sagal has performed in more than 50 other network television shows including ER, LA Law, Def Comedy Jam, Monk, the X Files, Life With Bonnie, Murder One, and House M.D., and appeared in major motion pictures with the likes of Dustin Hoffman, Eddie Murphy, Reese Witherspoon, and Kevin Spacey. She performed with the Groundlings in LA, appeared in the movie Coneheads, was a finalist for the cast of Saturday Night Live, and her ""Duel at the Mall"" clip from Malcolm in the Middle became an Internet sensation with over half a million views.

Sagal says today that she credits her own success not only to Margaret's work ethic but also to the chaos, competition and comedy of growing up in a family of 12. ""Mom was herself a comic genius, occasionally even on purpose,"" says Sagal. ""She brought more than a touch of 'I Love Lucy' to our childhood.""

Two of Margaret's sons have achieved success as business executives in Chicago, Patrick at Underwriters Laboratories, and Ryan at the Chicago Board of Trade and the Mercantile Exchange. Four of Margaret's children followed her husband into medicine in Chicago. Dr. Thomas McNally is an accomplished spine surgeon, educated at Dartmouth and the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, who serves in the leadership of a prominent orthopedic practice in Chicago. A Board-certified surgeon, Tom frequently lectures and is widely published on minimally-invasive procedures and other cutting edge surgeries.

Sheila McNally, RNFA, is a surgical nurse at Rush who worked side-by-side with her mother in the office, and with her father in the operating room. For over 25 years the father-daughter team functioned together as a single organism during complex surgical proceedings, collaborating for hours in the OR without use of words. Along with her mother and father, Sheila is highly regarded for caring for three generations of breast cancer patients and helping them to become whole again. Another daughter, Maureen Kenny Morrissey, was a physical therapist whose role as a mother nearly matched her mom's: Maureen is the mother of eight, including a set of triplets. Margaret's first daughter, Anne, was an occupational therapist who attended Northwestern, and who took her life while a college student at age 22.

The Girl in the Photograph

As Anne's death and the loss of carrier pilot Rand indicate, Margaret's life was also marked by heartbreak and tragedy. Her oldest brother Thomas Kenny, a World War II veteran, Annapolis classmate of President Jimmy Carter, and their father's successor as CEO of the B.C. Ziegler Company, was killed on June 15, 1972 along with his wife, four of their children and a total of 82 passengers and crew when their Cathay Pacific flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong exploded over Vietnam's central highlands. A Thai airport policeman was accused of planting a bomb on the plane, along with his young daughter and his fiancé, who he then heavily insured.

The Vietnam War was in full throttle at the time, and Margaret's youngest brother Patrick, an army officer, and her surgeon husband flew to Saigon to assist in the recovery, identification, and return of the Kenny family. Sidelined by delays and the realities of war, Dr. McNally undertook volunteer service as a reconstructive surgeon, including for many of the Vietnamese children who had been injured or disfigured by the war.

One such patient was a 9-year-old girl, Kim Phuc, who one week earlier had suffered third degree burns over half of her body, when South Vietnamese forces erred in dropping napalm on her village. Her photograph – depicting a girl, arms outstretched, clothes burned away, crying in agony and fleeing naked on a road – won the Pulitzer Prize, and remains one of the most iconic and haunting images in U.S. history. The Watergate tapes later revealed that, when her photo appeared on the front page of the New York Times, President Richard Nixon wondered if it had been staged.

Kim Phuc grew up to become a doctor, defected from Vietnam, and was reunited with Dr. McNally in 1996. In a network documentary, ""The Girl in the Photograph,"" she credited him with saving her life.

Repaying Gift of a Happy Childhood

Margaret Anne Kenny was born to Delbert James and Olive Anna (Kauffung) Kenny in West Bend, Wisconsin on August 23, 1929, the sixth of nine children, and the first to be born at a hospital, rather than at home. A century earlier her great-grandfather, Charles Kauffung, had emigrated from Germany in 1837, at age 2. He later fought in the Civil War, helping to defend Lincoln and the Nation's capital, the only time in history a sitting President was under enemy fire.

Margaret's father, D.J. Kenny, graduated from college at age 16 and served as an officer in the First World War. He was the longtime Chairman and CEO of the B.C. Ziegler Co., which as the nation's largest institutional bond underwriter helped build thousands of hospitals and churches across the country. Kenny was also a two-time GOP nominee for Governor of Wisconsin, and as a teen Margaret participated in his statewide political campaigns. In 1946 Kenny shared the ballot with U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, a central figure in the red scare that gripped the country in the 1950s.

In a handwritten autobiography prepared as a sophomore at West Bend High School in 1944, Margaret wrote of an idyllic small town childhood in the midst of the country and the midst of the American Century, of runaway donkey carts and a pond where she caught pollywogs, learned to swim at age 3, and ice-skated in the winter. She wrote: "I had such a wonderful childhood, that I could live it over and over, a dozen times."

Margaret repaid the generational debt by providing in turn a similarly idyllic upbringing for her own 10 children. If Margaret's childhood was Norman Rockwell, then her children's was more John Hughes, a neighbor and movie director who used Glenbrook North High School as the real-life backdrop for many of the coming of age films which recorded that town and that time, including The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. More than one family episode is suspected of having found its way into Hughes' films. (""Edward McNally, Rumored Inspiration for Ferris Bueller,"" Washington Post, August 12, 2009.)

Their mother's advice, says daughter Sheila, was: ""Dance, have fun, laugh. When you're invited to a party, go. Buy that car, go on that vacation, use the good china."" Sheila says that Margaret ""taught us how to multi-task, and inspired us with her love for cooking, summer lakes, tennis, cycling and skiing."" Margaret was celebrated as an inspired and prodigious shopper, recognized at Nieman Marcus counters throughout the area as a top member of the President's Circle, and capable of buying in one swoop a couple dozen pairs of roller blades or cowboy boots to outfit her children, grandchildren and in laws at Christmas. Sheila describes Margaret as a fashion trend-setter who ""knew how to put together a memorable outfit, and who said to always look your best, be a little bit over-dressed."" Sheila adds that, ""I'm also pretty sure that she was the first mom on the block to wear hip hugger jeans and clogs.""

Margaret was a renowned entertainer who found improbable ways to stage events with grace, nerve and flair. She hosted four memorable weddings, invented magical Christmas gatherings, and threw large imaginative celebrations – and taught her children to do the same. One of them, for example, is widely credited as founder and instigator of the round-the-world ""birthday party for Planet Earth" on New Years Eve, 1999, with ""celebrations in each of the globe's 24 time zones, at sites including Stonehenge, Red Square and the Taj Mahal"" and an epic celebration at the Great Pyramid of Cheops. (NY Times, Mar. 14, 1983, Sept. 1, 1991, Dec. 29, 1996; Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 31, 1995; Newsweek, Feb. 16, 1997.)

As an active participant in many charitable causes in Chicago, Margaret's service included two tours of duty as Chair of Rush Faculty Wives and her leadership work with the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse. But her children say that her greatest gift was the strength of Margaret's marriage. In a letter four years before his death, Navy pilot Rand wrote about his mother Margaret and the ""wonderful and admirable relationship"" she shared with her husband. The pilot called it ""the foundation that has sustained all of us,"" and said that her marriage was ""far and away the best love affair I know.""

Survivor with a Unique Legacy

Although Margaret and Randy McNally were born just 5 days apart in 1929, but for a Wisconsin snowstorm, likely they never would have met. At age 19, a snowy car wreck nearly ended her life. It left Margaret with a broken neck that caused her to miss a year of school. They only overlapped at SLU because -- when her future husband arrived there as a first year medical student – Margaret's lost year meant that she was still at SLU to finish her senior year.

Some 25 years later, that young doctor saved Margaret from another close brush with death. In 1974 she was diagnosed with a deadly melanoma that threatened her eyesight and her life. Although it's rare for a husband to operate on his wife, Dr. McNally performed the exacting eye surgery that resulted in a cancer-free diagnosis and the 40 years of additional sight and life that enabled Margaret to see all of her children educated and married, and the births of two new generations.

Her daughter Maureen says that Margaret's most powerful lessons were by way of example. Margaret was a Catholic of deep and abiding faith, and confident of a new life to come. Maureen said: ""I watched her endure more than her share of heartbreak and loss. I also watched her eventually get up off her knees, smile again, and share with others genuine and real joy.""

TV producer Tara says that her mom never took half-measures, that she was full throttle all the way, succeeding with precision, discipline and flair. Tara believes that Margaret ""had ESP, that she knew almost everything, and was very often right about the people in my life, who was a real friend, and who was not."" With Margaret's gifts, work ethic, beauty and spark, Tara said, ""I often think that if she was born in a different time, she would have been at the top of whatever field she chose. She would have run a company, been in show business, or followed her father into politics.""

Instead, she enabled those dreams to be realized by the daughters and sons she raised. Her son Tom says, ""She taught us not just to dream, but also to do.""

"The McNally kids all began their journeys from this one, welcoming house," says Curt Pesmen, a Colorado Author and childhood family friend. "And a common factor is that these are ridiculously complex, elite, and high-stakes talents: Landing a warplane, at night, on a moving ship. Connecting with an audience, live, on a Broadway stage. Crafting last-minute changes to a nationwide address from the Oval Office. Performing microsurgery on the human spine. Producing a worldwide broadcast for a television superstar in the jungles of Brazil." Pesmen observes that "Each is, by itself, a rare and utterly distinct skill set. Performed in real time, in an unforgiving environment, with no margin for error.

"In other words," he adds, "a lot like being a mother of 10."

Dr. McNally cared for Margaret and their homes during her final years of illness and of life. He says simply: ""There is nothing I could ever do for Margaret, that would ever amount to one one-hundredth of what she did for, and gave to, me and our children.""

Margaret McNally lived a quiet but influential life touched by extraordinary moments. She met with the President in the Oval Office, shared Thanksgiving at the home of George Clooney, witnessed her son land a carrier jet, and stood on the set with Oprah Winfrey. It is Oprah who calls mothers the greatest spiritual teachers in the world. And Oprah also says that she believes that the universe speaks to us in whispers.

Here is what Barbara Bush said that day at Wellesley College, to the graduates of 1991:

""But as important as your obligations as a doctor, a lawyer, a business leader will be, you are a human being first. And those human connections -- with spouses, with children, with friends -- are the most important investments you will ever make.

""At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend, or a parent.""

Margaret Anne Kenny McNally is survived by her husband of 61 years, Dr. Randall McNally of Chicago; eight children: Maureen Morrissey, Patrick McNally and Tara Montgomery of Northbrook; Edward McNally of New York; Sheila McNally, Ryan McNally and Tom McNally of Chicago; and McNally Sagal of Los Angeles; 30 grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and her sister Janet Kenny Koehn and a brother Col. Patrick D.J. Kenny (ret.). Along with two children, Anne Mary McNally and Lt. Cmdr. Randall E. McNally II (USN), two grandchildren preceded her in death, Sean Morrissey in a childhood accident, and Emmett Morrissey of leukemia, both at age 4.

Seven of her granddaughters bear her names.

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