Donna Kathryn Bieser (née Voell), age 92, passed away peacefully on December 3, 2025, at her home in Milwaukee, surrounded by family. Born on March 15, 1933, in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, she lived a faith and hope-filled life rooted in service and gratitude.
Our mom was the oldest child of Norman Francis Voell and Donna Luella (Suemnicht) Voell and grew up on 51st Street in Milwaukee, just a few blocks from St. Sebastian Parish School. Her childhood was shaped by the rhythms of a big Catholic family and the energy of her Washington Park neighborhood. The Milwaukee County Zoo was nearby, as were her high school and college, Holy Angels Academy and Marquette University. She was the oldest of eight siblings: the late James ‘Jim’ Voell, Anthony ‘Tony’ Voell, the late John ‘Jack’ Voell, Thomas ‘Tom’ Voell, Mary Voell, Richard ‘Rick’ Voell, and George Voell.
On June 13, 1959, Donna married James Alvin Bieser at St Sebastian Parish. Their marriage of 66 years was tested and sustained by its balance: a thoughtful idealist and a grounded pragmatist who spent their years proving that love can be stubborn enough to last when fueled by prayers, loyalty, and steadiness. Together they made their home on the 70th street side of Milwaukee’s Enderis Park and spent nearly seven decades managing a multi-generational household.
Mom was a registered nurse and worked for several years in public health for Milwaukee County and for the Hawaii Board of Health in Honolulu, but her vocation was being a mother. She raised six children -- Patrick, Daniel, Michael, Kathryn, James, and Susan, and proved you can raise a programmer, chocolatier, fermenter, teacher, engineer, and nurse under one roof, and that requiring all to be home before the streetlights came on was good parenting.
One of her gifts to her children was modeling active compassion and service to others. Her youngest brother George was a surrogate son in the 1960s, and in the late 1970s she opened their home and hearts again to Matt Bieser. For decades mom assigned the Bieser kids to gather day-old bread from Dobke’s Bakery on Vliet and deliver the bags to St. Ben’s Meal Program, the House of Peace, or Fr. Gene’s Help Center. She sewed the funeral pall for MGC, ran the MGC St. Vincent de Paul meal program, and anonymously donated to the new MGC parish organ fundraiser.
Her sixteen grandchildren were frequent visitors: Patrick Jr. and Katelyn Bieser; Ben Bieser; August Bieser; Christian, India, Miguel, Noah, Jonah, and Annie Alcorta; Charlie, Ted, Mary, and Nina Bieser; Joseph and Peter Arnsdorf; Maya and Anjali Sankpal-Tatera. She would quiz them like an investigative reporter -- prying for details of new jobs, travels, schooling, and partners, which were noted and shared with the next visitor. Her two great-grandchildren, Cooper and Berkley Asmuth, will tell stories of Nana’s oatmeal biscuit cookie baking lessons and tomato gardening tips.
Mom’s curiosity was bottomless. She could find something interesting in anyone. A parade of visitors shared our dinner table -- the janitor from St Sebastian, a missionary from Africa, a recently released felon from state prison, the parish priests from MGC and the Jesuits from Marquette, a family of refugees from Laos. The missionary made a heaping plate of chicken, peas, potatoes, and cranberries, which horrified us children, but gratified mom whose lesson “It all ends up in the same place anyways” was vindicated.
She served on the MGC parish council, MGC Parent Teacher Association, was elected to the Archdiocesan Synod, and spent a year as a special advisor to Archbishop Weakland of Milwaukee. She cherished bridge club, quilting group, and sustained lifelong friendships with her many friends. For 30 years she was one of the “old ladies” working the polls on election day at Enderis Park, and handing out ice cream on the Fourth of July.
Our mom loved reading and history (David McCullough was a favorite author). She had a passion for genealogy, and spent 50 years researching, cataloging, writing letters, and curating artifacts for the family. A legacy of notes in her distinct cursive handwriting can be found on the backs of photographs, in recipe books, in notebooks and on scraps of paper, attached to heirlooms, and in her thousands of letters and postcards. She corresponded with pen-pals around the world, and gift shops everywhere benefited from her postcard purchases. Letters from her college friend, Jane, from Germany fascinated us with their mysterious postage and markings.
Memories: Getting dragged out of bed at 5 a.m. on spring weekends to catch glimpses of migrating warblers in Jacobus Park. Her lifetime logbook of bird sightings. The dining room table covered for the last 30 years with 500-piece jigsaw puzzles in progress. Her quilting club stitching together hundreds of blankets -- gifts for loved ones. Making afghan blankets for each of her children. Knitting sweaters, mittens and scarves for family distribution, crafting hundreds of Pocket Pals as gifts for children needing comfort, and prayer patches for parishioners in need of support. She insisted that the boys learn to sew their own merit badges to their scout uniforms. Playing and teaching solitaire, and double solitaire, while holding a conversation. In the morning, the radio in the kitchen was tuned to WISN 1130 AM for Charlie and Shaky, then to WTMJ 620 AM for Ask Your Neighbor with Gordon Hinckley, and Paul Harvey’s news and comment.
Mom baked the bounty that grew in our backyard. Rhubarb near the garage became kuchen, golden delicious apples from our tree were harvested for apple pies, and apple cinnamon coffee cake awaited us after Sunday morning mass. At Christmas, there was always a traditional German stollen bread. In autumn mom’s kitchen became a canning factory, producing apple preserves in mason jars that filled the basement closet.
Mom was the cook. We ate meatloaf and hamburger helper, drank powdered milk, looked forward to chicken or fish sticks, and invited ourselves to friend’s houses if we smelled liver cooking through the kitchen window. On the rare Saturdays when dad was surveying, mom allowed Captain Crunch instead of Cheerios so long as all evidence was gone before dad was back.
Family gatherings frequently ended with mom, her sister Mary, and grandpa Norman organizing a choir around the piano while mom, a gifted pianist, sight-read sheet music. Her own choral journey blossomed in high school as an Angelaire and continued for 40 years as an alto in the MGC church choir. She accompanied a diocesan choir to Rome to sing at the Vatican for the pope.
In 1982, mom’s brother Tom gifted her a fruitcake for Christmas. Mom, not a big fan of fruitcake, put it in the freezer and the next year, 1983, re-gifted it to her sister Mary. Mary, also not a fan of fruitcake stored it in her freezer, and on Tom’s birthday in 1984, re-gifted his original fruitcake back to him. And so it began. In 1986 Tom re-gifted the fruitcake to his bother Rick, and 42 years later the fruitcake has traveled thru Wisconsin, to New York, Maryland, Georgia, and back again. The family fruitcake is scheduled to make its next appearance this Christmas. We will use the occasion to remember our mom and the unique tradition she accidentally (or intentionally?) started.
The family invites all to attend a funeral service at Mother of Good Counsel Parish, 6924 W. Lisbon Ave. Milwaukee, on Saturday January 17, 2026, with visitation from 10:30am to 12:30pm; Mass of Christian Burial 12:30pm to 1:30pm and a reception in the church basement 1:30pm to 3:30pm. A private burial will follow at a later date at Holy Cross Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, our mom would delighted if you made a donation to Milwaukee’s St. Ben’s Community Meal program: https://www.capuchincommunityservices.org/en/donate/monetary-donations/