Margaret Ann Formo Kittelson

Margaret Kittelson passed from this life, after years of suffering from kidney disease, in the comfort of divine assurance and the loving presence of her eldest daughter and her cherished cat after a blessedly brief period of acute activation. She grew up in Edina, Minnesota, the eldest child of Marvin W. and Florence Anderson Formo. She skated on the ice her father cultivated in their backyard every winter, rode her bicycle to the area's many lakes every summer, and spent a pivotal high school year with a host family in Mexico City, with whom she continued to correspond for decades.

For her first two undergraduate years, she attended St. Olaf College, where she met her future husband, James M. Kittelson (1941-2003). She completed her bachelor's degree at the University of Minnesota, and after their marriage moved first to Palo Alto, California, where her husband pursued his doctorate in history at Stanford and she taught fifth-graders, and then to Strasbourg, France, where he performed archival research for his dissertation and she learned how to shop, cook, entertain, and speak in French. They moved to Ames, Iowa, in 1968, for his job at Iowa State University and there she bore her first child, who cared for her tirelessly in her last years.

In 1971 the family moved to Columbus, Ohio, for her husband's position at The Ohio State University. She bore another daughter and masterfully managed every aspect of their home, especially its gardens, until 1997, when her husband achieved a new position at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, which brought her back to her roots. After his passing, she moved to the Southwest to be with her daughter Beth. She lived out her remaining years under a sky often brilliantly blue and a whole new environment to learn how to garden.

Her favorite word was "whimsy." She delighted in the sensation of warm water from the faucet when she was washing dishes, the combination of asparagus soup and cheese soufflé, all kinds of Asian cuisines, and every time she witnessed anyone pick themselves up after a setback, which she called "come again."

She is survived by her daughters, Elizabeth Kittelson-Mansure of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Amy Kittelstrom of Santa Rosa, California, as well as her grandchildren, Adrien VanVoorhis of Philadelphia, a graduate of Temple University, Traeger Kittelstrom of Santa Rosa, a graduate of Santa Rosa High School, and Seelah Kittelstrom, a student at Columbia University. Her sister Kristin Joseph of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and her best friend for fifty years, Bette Dare of Columbus, Ohio, also remember her with love.

She passed on to all who cared about her a love of the English language and of the simple pleasures of life as well as an urgent concern for the very highest matters. Private memorials will be held in Santa Rosa, California, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and over Zoom. Contact kitt@sonoma.edu for details.

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