Brother and Sister Eulogies

My brother, Michael, died unexpectedly last year, and my sister Sheila this year. My eulogies and other information and pictures below. More about them sprinkled throughout Alan D. Bergman, Adopting Liberty: The Stephan Kinsella Story (2025) (see Kinsella Biography: Adopting Liberty).

One of the two local Catholic churches we attended when I grew up, as the Parish lines kept changing. Mike and I were altar boys at the other one.

Sheila

Sheila obituary.

Memories of Sheila
Eulogy for Sheila Kaye Kinsella

(audio)
Stephan Kinsella
St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, Prairieville
August 30, 2025

I can’t say one of my skills is delivering good eulogies and I can’t say I hope I get better at it. That’s what I said a year ago at my brother’s service here in this very church. We are here today to honor my sister, Sheila Kaye Kinsella, who left us too soon on July 24, 2025.

My earliest memory of Sheila is from a car ride home from when we went to pick her up when she was about 5 months old from the adoption agency in Alexandria, or as Mom and Dad call it, “Ellec.” I was 5 years old. I remember her in a bassinet or carrier on the floor in front of Mom’s seat, or maybe in front of my seat, but maybe Dad can correct me. They had already picked out her first name and were talking about her middle name. Mom’s mother, Pep, our Maw Maw Bill, had raised several foster children, and we knew three of them well, Charles Ourso, and Kaye and Marie Shelby. I liked Kaye and so remember suggesting we use Kaye for her middle name. I also remember her as a toddler, looking so small and helpless in her leg braces, and her sweet smile on Christmas mornings opening all our presents.

Growing up in Prairieville, Louisiana, under the care of our wonderful parents, Norman and Patsy Kinsella, Sheila and Mike and I had a wonderful childhood in Galvez filled with love and fun and family and friends. She and Michael briefly followed me to St. George Elementary, after Dad and his friends persuaded the priest to allow out of Parish kids to attend across Parish lines after he and his friends spent several weekends sandblasting and repainting the whole school. But Sheila and Mike were more social than me, I suppose, and wanted to go to the local schools with their friends, so they soon left St. George and both attended Galvez Elementary and then St. Amant High School, where Mom was an assistant teacher and Dad was the volunteer tennis coach. I think Dad is glad that at least I stayed at St. George so his investment could pay off, but everybody was happy with the arrangement.

All three of us kids loved our many family vacations—camping trips to Percy Quinn, Arkansas, road trips to Colorado and New Mexico, trips to Hodges Gardens and beach trips to Navarre Beach in Florida. We often brought friends along and had fun and adventures, as kids are supposed to do. We had fun playing in the woods, hunting and fishing, playing at Maw Maw and Paw Paw Bill’s barn and farm.

She-she, which we sometimes called her, also loved sports like baskball and softball and tennis, which she played at St. Amant and on the court Dad built in his pasture after he taught Mom to play on our driveway.

They were good times. Things we all took for granted, again, as kids are supposed to do.

I probably also took for granted Sheila’s sweet smile and demeanor. She was gentle and kind, as I’m sure all her friends know. She loved my wife, Cindy, from the moment they met during our dating days at LSU. Like Michael, Sheila very happy when Cindy and I got together, and when we finally had Ethan, though Sheila beat us to the punch in the grandkids department. We only had one, so we can outnumber him.

And yes, Sheila loved her friends and family, such as her friends John and Shawn Erskine, Amber Bergeron, Kelly Foster, and so many others, but above all Blair and Mark, and her of course her grandchildren.

When our Mom, Patsy, who passed away three years ago after a succumbing to Alzheimer’s, was in the final stages, Sheila was by Mom and Dad’s side, providing help and loving support, traveling there many times from Texas to help out.

At 54, Sheila was taken too soon, as with our brother Mike last year. This is one of the sad times that we have to endure so that the good parts of life have meaning. But she lives on in the lives and hearts of those she touched and in our memories of her, and in her children and grandchildren.

Sheila, we love you and miss you, and are blessed to have had you in our lives.

Michael

Michael obituary. Delivered Eulogies in Sonoma and Gonzales services.

Memories of Michael
Stephan Kinsella
Oct. 4, 2024

Michael and I were very close brothers. I was the oldest; he was two years younger. We were both lucky to have been adopted by two wonderful parents, and we both knew it. We had a very happy childhood and had many adventures together. Our interests and circles diverged later in life but when we were young we went camping, fishing, pulled pranks on neighbors, went hunting. We went crawfishing in the local sewage canal. We slept in the treehouse Dad built for us; we rode go-karts, and later motorcycles. We mowed a huge 4 acre lawn ever Saturday morning, and helped Dad with gardening and feeding animals and other chores. I remember Mike became attached to two of our ducks and he named then Dilly and Dally.

One time we had a cow named Rosy and Mike, his friend Rusty and I got the bright idea to try to ride her, since we didn’t have a horse. So we lured her into the barn to lick a salt block or eat some feed, as I hung from a rope hung over the rafters and dropped onto Rosie’s back; she took off and scraped me off with some low-hanging branches of a nearby tree. When it was Mike’s turn he jumped onto the rope but fall off and busted his forehead open.

One time Mike and I stole a pack of Dad’s cigarettes and he, Rusty and I tried to smoke them out in the woods. That night at dinner Michael for some reason blurted out that Rusty and I had smoked cigarettes. I froze. Dad said, “Oh yeah, where were you?” Michael started crying and immediately confessed. Michael had busted himself. That may be one reason we eventually nicknamed him Michael Do-Wrong. But more often we called him Mickey or Mickel-Pickel.

Mike knew what he wanted. We had an above ground pool Dad had built but Mike wanted a proper pool so he had Dad build him one. He could also be stubborn. One time on a duck hunting trip Dad had taken us on, one of the “macho” type men there explained to Michael that if he shot a duck he would have to clean it. Michael refused to and when the guy insisted, Mike refused to go hunting.

As we got older our interests diverged. He and our sister Sheila had followed me to St. George Elementary, which was pretty far from home, in Baton Rouge, in the neighboring parish, and pretty soon they both decided to leave St. George and to go the local schools. I say we were close, and we were, but we didn’t always have the same interests. Michael was smart but when I was get off on a tangent about philosophy or my political theories, he would just say “You’re so weird.” Cindy would sometime nod in agreement.

My dad had built a tennis court in our pasture when my mom got interested in tennis, and then he became the volunteer tennis coach at Michael’s high school. He had befriended my now-wife Cindy, who was my age and two years older than Michael, and when she would come to the house for tennis practice, Michael would urge me to pay attention to and try to meet her. I ignored him, with my head in the books, and vaguely wondered why he didn’t pursue her if he was so interested. I think I know why now.

We were at LSU together but had different majors and friend groups—except for Cindy, who was by then my girlfriend. Michael was right after all.

Cindy and Michael were always very close. I loved him, well, like a brother, but Cindy loved him just as much, maybe even a bit more. They probably had more in common with each other than I did with either. He was so happy that we ended up together. He was the best man at our wedding.

As we both moved around the country and the world with our careers over the last 30 or so years, we traveled a lot and visited a lot; we visited him in D.C. when we lived in Philadelphia; he visited us in Houston, and Philly; we visited him when he lived in Prague; we all went to Turkey, and later Capri, Italy, together, and various countries in Europe. Every September I go to Turkey for a conference and talked to Mike about possibly joining me one year. But we never got around to it. I just got back and thought of him here. I wanted to text him some pictures but could not.

In the last fifteen years we got to know and love his life partner Matt, as did our son Ethan, who also adored his Uncle Mikey. Mike and Matt were so good together. We, especially Cindy, always had such a good time with them. I think the last 15 years of his life were his happiest and best.

Mike was always reliable, and dependable, and a good guy. I could always count on him. So could Cindy. He visited me a couple months ago to help Cindy and me out after I had had a stroke. My friend from Georgia was there visiting me too and met Michael and they became quick friends; my friend told me that a few days before Mike died, they were texting with each other about a TV show they had been watching. Greg and his wife Joy flew in from George for Michael’s earlier memorial service in Prairieville.

We lived on other sides of the country and sometimes other sides of the world, but I always thought we would get old together, sort of how married couples hope they will. I figured he would outlive me and Cindy would have him in my place. But it was not to be. I’ll miss him so much. If you believe in this way of looking at things, you can think of him in Heaven now with his dear friend Anne, who also died to young. I think of him dancing with our grandma Theda, or Maw Maw Kin, with whom he was very close. They liked to go dancing together at “The Music Box.”

This is sad for all of us, but this is unavoidable in a life with human relationships that matter. This is one of the sad times that we have to endure as the price of the good parts of life having meaning.

57 is too young. We lost our Mikey too early. It is hard on everyone who loved him. We weren’t ready for it. I take comfort in the memories I have of him and how he enriched my and Cindy and Ethan’s life, and that of his family and so many friends. And though he died too young, he lived a life of joy and success and adventure; he lived far more in his 57 years than many do in 100. He lived long enough to become himself; to know who he was; and for everyone else to know who he was too; this is why he has so many friends from around the country and the world who are in deep mourning for him as well.

Michael, we all love you, and will all miss you. Thank you for bringing joy to our lives and making life a bit brighter than it would have been without you.

Sheila photos:

Michael photos: