The north star for Honey Gfroerer was one her mother followed: “Love One Another.” That commandment of Jesus guided her to love not only her family but also the wider community wherever she lived, in suburban Chicago or metro Atlanta.
“She loved serving other people, that’s just how she was,” says her son Tim Gfroerer. His older sister Marne Gfroerer Matthews says her mother’s desire to help others “was just part of her DNA. It was a calling.”
For decades, she took the needy into her home and helped others outside of it while raising her own brood of five children.
Born as Mary Ruth to Neil Charles and Mary Ruth Hurley in River Forest, Illinois, her father started calling her Honey and the name stuck. Decades later, she legally changed it to Honey. She died Nov. 3 in Atlanta. She was 88.
After finishing high school, she earned a degree in elementary education from St. Mary’s College of Notre Dame. While teaching, she met and married George Gfroerer. They had five children and lived in Winnetka, a suburb north of Chicago. Daughter Gaylan Felton remembers attending 6 a.m. daily Mass as a family before school.
Honey was part of a network providing homes to “summer girls,” pregnant, unmarried young women. “In the 1960s, single pregnant women could experience social hardship,” says Marne Matthews. “My Mom would house these girls and be with them through birth, supporting them until they felt comfortable returning home.”
In 1972, the family moved to Atlanta for their father’s job, intending to stay only a few months. They never went back to Chicago, settling in Northeast Atlanta. In metro Atlanta, the family attended a daily 5:30 p.m. Mass.
The Gfroerers’ modest home welcomed children from the Division of Family & Children Services foster system, who would stay for months or years before being adopted or returned to their families. The Gfroerer siblings said officials knew Honey was always willing to help. Gaylan Felton says it wasn’t unusual for her to come home from school to meet a new foster child in the family kitchen with Honey.
Gaylan recalled a young woman who lived with them for two years. After the teenager finished high school, Honey helped her get a scholarship to college in Tennessee. The young woman later settled down, married and had children. Another foster placement when Gaylan was a teenager was a 4-year-old girl who had been living in a one-bedroom house with four siblings and two parents suffering from addiction. She shared Gaylan’s room for two years, until her parents eventually recovered and the family was reunited.
Having different children living in her bedroom “didn’t bother me one bit,” says Gaylan. “It was just what we did. Giving back was very important to my mother.” When Gaylan introduced her family at a homecoming event in high school, she included two additional “brothers,” 7 and 8 years old, who were staying with the family. Both had difficulty reading and writing when they arrived, so Honey taught them.
Foster families receive a state subsidy to help defray the cost of caring for foster children. Honey would accept the money and then give it to the families of the children she cared for.
“In Chicago, my mother had worked with an agency, but in Atlanta she was more independent,” says Marne Matthews. “My father and she were partners. Whatever she came up with, he was all in.” She remembers one year when her mother assembled all the kids to vote on whether to give their Christmas gifts and dinner to a needy family. The children voted yes, and they delivered not only gifts but also dinner to those who couldn’t afford to celebrate.
The family routinely sponsored a family at Christmas through DFCS. Honey felt it was important for the entire family to deliver the gifts together “so we could see where they lived and have an opportunity to meet the mother,” says Gaylan. “She was completely nonjudgmental. She wanted us to see how impactful our giving could be.”
In the early 1980s, the Gfroerers housed four Vietnamese refugees in their finished basement for several months. “They didn’t speak much English, but they were gracious and super polite. And they were good soccer players,” son Tim Gfroerer says.
Honey secured housing for the men and found furniture for their apartment. She took them to English classes, encouraged them to wear socks and shoes instead of flip-flops and got them jobs. “They were good, honest men, and she wanted them to be independent,” Gaylan says.
The family also sponsored Cubans who came via the Mariel Boatlift in the 1980s. The men didn’t live with the Gfroerers, but Honey and George supported them financially and Honey helped them get settled.
After the older Gfroerer children left for college, Honey earned a master’s degree in pastoral studies from Loyola University of New Orleans and became a social worker for Fulton County’s Division of Family & Children Services. “That was a perfect job for her,” says Tim Gfroerer. Honey helped homeless families move from shelters into stable housing, found them jobs and provided them with food and resources.
“She would have done that job for free, she loved the work so much,” he says.
Later, Honey and George were involved in the Cathedral of Christ the King Catholic Church’s Stephen Ministry, which helps people experiencing a crisis by listening and providing spiritual and emotional support.
George’s death this past January upended Honey, her children said. Losing her husband of 64 years, “was just too much for my mom,” says Tim. “She just couldn’t go on without him.”
In addition to Marne, Gaylan, and Tim, Honey Gfroerer is survived by her sister, Molly King, two additional sons, Giff and Terry, numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren and other relatives. A celebration of life will be held at the Cathedral of Christ the King Dec. 6, at 10 a.m., with a reception following. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests a donation to Catholic Charities Atlanta (https://catholiccharitiesatlanta.org/donate/) 2401 Lake Park Drive SE, Smyrna, GA 30080 or to the Cathedral of Christ the King.
