Obituaries

Tuesday, June 3, 2003, page 62

Joan Termini, 68; managed firm

that published Catholic texts

by Lucio Guerrero

Staff Reporter

 For a full generation, Joan Termini was a major resource person for millions of the country's Roman Catholics.

She worked for many years as the general manager of the South-Holland- based American Catholic Press, which publishes the hymnbooks and missals found in many Catholic Churches throughout the United States.

Her hard work made sure that the books went to parishioners at churches.  She made sure missals reached Catholics who couldn't get to church because of health reasons.  In this ministry, she kept up regular contact with communication personnel in Catholic dioceses across the country.

   "She was a great person, with much energy and genuine dedication to the Catholic Church," said Rev. Michael Gilligan, who knew Joan Termini since the late l970s. 

   Mrs. Termini died  Thursday of  congestive heart failure and severe infection, called sepsis, at South Suburban Hospital in Hazel Crest.  She was 68.

   Mrs. Termini was raised at Chicago's Angel Guardian Orphanage, after her mother died when she was 4 years old.  With her grandmother, her father raised her and her siblings for a time; but the little girl was placed in the orphanage when her father left to join the Army.

   She attended Immaculata High School and graduated from Angel Guardian Orphanage.  She then spent two years with the Missionary Sisters of Africa (the "White Sisters").  She cut her studies short, however, and did not take her final vows to become a religious sister.

   After attending Mundelein College, Joan began work as a secretary at St. Joseph Cemetery.  It was during her commute to work that he met her husband-to-be, Frank Termini.  They met outside a grocery store that his family owned, just east of Elmwood Park, in Chicago.  In 1955, the two married and then moved to Chicago Heights.

  As time went on, she and Frank raised nine children, all in the same house on Normandy Drive.  The children's  upbringing and education were the parents'  first concern, for many years.   

   In the 1960s, she operated her own business, a lettershop, AT Services; she also worked for Shepherd Printers in Chicago Heights.  During this time, she also worked for the local vicariate, a grouping of parishes in the southern suburbs of the Archdiocese of Chicago, under the direction of the late Father Raymond Nugent.  She also worked in the religious education program in her local Catholic parish.  

    In the 1970s, she began work for American Catholic Press.  She was happy to take on many responsibilities, such as typesetting, copy preparation, and management.  In all this work, she found personal fulfillment, as well as success in every respect.

   "As a young adult, she said that she wanted to make Christ known; in her work, she fulfilled that mission,"  Father Gilligan said.  "She was a valued friend and colleague to many and will be missed by all of us."

   Mrs. Termini is survived by her husband, Frank; four daughters, Wendy Loggins, Francine Poliandri, Marian Collins and Tara; five sons, Raymond, Frank, Philip, Joseph and John; two sisters, Marilyn Johnson and Marion Ferro; and a brother, Joseph McMahon.

   Mass will be offered at 11 a.m. today at San Rocco Oratory, 315 E. 22nd St., Chicago Heights.  Burial will be in Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood.