Theresa and Ken Willett share a laugh.
Willett family photo

Theresa Laskowski Willett, Catholic activist and volunteer, died Tuesday from complications due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS. She was 54.

A rosary will be held at 7 p.m., Monday, March 24 at All Saints Parish in Northeast Portland. A funeral Mass will be held at 11 a.m., Tuesday, March 25 also at All Saints.
Born and baptized in Galveston, Texas, Theresa moved to Portland as a child where she attended the Madeleine and Holy Child Academy schools. Her family volunteered often at Central Catholic, where her brothers attended, and her mother worked at the Downtown Chapel for many years. Her father fixed the roof and furnace at the convent; her mother made clothes for the nuns out of their old habits when they were first allowed to wear street clothes.

Raised by a family of faithful, dedicated volunteers, Theresa grew up in a community where people worked to make a difference in their church.

She married Ken Willett in 1978 and they joined All Saints Parish in 1979, where they have remained ever since. All four of their children were baptized and attended elementary school there. Theresa served as chair of the parish council, chaired numerous fundraising projects (including six All Saints School auctions), started a communications committee to upgrade signs, printed materials and other communications around the parish, and last year originated the All Saints Speaker Series, which brought celebrated Catholic journalist John Allen to Portland in the fall for a nearly sold-out event.

She served on the board of many Catholic organizations, from Catholic Charities and Mt. Angel Abbey (where she was the first woman to serve on the board) to St. Mary’s Home for Boys and Central Catholic High School. She started Catholic Charities first ever annual celebration fundraiser. She quickly achieved a reputation as a fundraising and event planning expert, and was loved by members of the Catholic community throughout Portland for her faithfulness, creativity, commitment and hard work.

As members of the Knights and Ladies of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, the Willetts raised money to support Palestinian Christians. When the Order was considering a building project at Bethlehem University, Theresa suggested a coffee shop, providing the first place on campus where students of all faiths could socialize, nurture relationships, and simply be college students free from partisan conflict. The Willetts visited the university on their 2004 pilgrimage to the Holy Land to see the communities their fundraising helped support. The couple were honored in the fall with the Golden Palm, the Order’s highest honor, at a special Mass where Theresa received a standing ovation from the crowd of hundreds of Portland-area Catholics.

Theresa and Ken have belonged to a small church community since 1996, which became a second family in the faith for them and provided a crucial support network during the past three years of her illness.

Theresa was diagnosed with the debilitating neuromuscular disease ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, in spring, 2005. After her diagnosis she was referred to the ALS Association of Oregon and Southwest Washington, a nonprofit that provides vital services to ALS patients and their families. As a seasoned fundraiser and event planner, however, Theresa immediately became one of the ALS Association’s hardest-working volunteers, serving on event committees and providing development advice from her decades of nonprofit experience. Her team for the annual ALS Walk routinely swept the statewide fundraising awards and she was honored at the ALS gala last May, speaking on the impact of her disease on the community around her.

“I am not a person who separates her faith from politics, home and everyday life,” she told the Oregonian last year. “Everybody has a cross. For right now, this happens to be ours. Other things might be more private, more personal, but this one is a
public cross, a family thing.

“Throughout her life, Theresa’s dedication to the needs of the church and the community inspired us,” said Mary Jo Tully, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Portland. “That commitment never wavered. To the end, she was focused on her ‘projects’ and the things that needed to be done for others. In these last months, she turned the task over to all of us with a smile.”

In the last years of her life, Theresa was an inspiration of faith to all who knew her, widely recognized for her love for her church her family, and her deep Catholic roots in service and ministry. Her positive spirit, charisma and endless determination to make her community a better place made her a role model to everyone who saw her at Mass on Sundays. Cared for to the end by her husband, family, and hundreds of loving friends, Theresa truly made a difference in her community and will be deeply missed.

She is survived by her mother, Dorothy Laskowski; husband, Kenneth; children, Catherine, Claire, Christopher and Colin Willett; brothers Pat and Mark Laskowski; her sister Kathleen Dickson; and a large, close-knit extended family.