Loretta Mae Motley was born on a cold March morning in 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota, the youngest of five children. From the time she could walk, she had a gift for making everyone in the room feel seen. Her mother used to say Loretta came out of the womb already asking if anyone needed anything.
She trained as a registered nurse at St. Mary's School of Nursing and spent 34 years at Hennepin County Medical Center, working the oncology ward for most of her career. Colleagues remembered her for her steady hands and steadier heart — the nurse who stayed after her shift ended because a patient had no one to sit with them.
In 1966 she married Thomas Motley, a carpenter from St. Paul. They raised four children in a house on Portland Avenue that always smelled like coffee and something baking. Tom passed in 2019 after 53 years of marriage. Loretta said she kept the porch light on for him every night after that.
She was an avid gardener, a fierce card player, and the unofficial historian of the Motley family. She kept every letter, every Christmas card, every report card. She knew every birthday without looking it up. She made the same lemon cake every Easter for 60 years and never once wrote the recipe down, insisting she'd just teach whoever needed to know.
Loretta passed peacefully on January 3rd, 2024, surrounded by her children. She is survived by four children, eleven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren — all of whom were convinced, from childhood, that they were her favorite. She had a way of making that true for each of them.