Her friends called her Millie. The future pope called her Ma.
Mildred Prevost, whose youngest son, Robert, would one day take the name Pope Leo XIV, cut her own extraordinary path of ambition, talent and religious devotion through her hometown of Chicago.
Born Mildred Agnes Martinez, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in education in 1947 and attended graduate school at DePaul University, an academic path that was unusual for women at that time. She waited until she was in her mid-30s, Cook County records show, to marry Louis Prevost, who was eight years her junior. Mrs. Prevost was in her late 30s and early 40s when she had children, three boys born in a span of just over four years.
An enthusiastic performer, a regular in costumed skits and plays at school fund-raisers, and an accomplished singer, Mrs. Prevost once recorded her own rendition of “Ave Maria,” a hymn of considerable difficulty for an amateur.
“That was her trademark song,” her oldest son, who was also named Louis, said in an interview on Saturday. “She would belt it out.”
Most dominant in Mrs. Prevost’s life were her family and deep Catholic faith, people who knew her said, the latter a lifelong conviction that made her a central force behind Robert’s path to the priesthood and beyond.
Mrs. Prevost died in 1990, after being diagnosed with cancer and enduring chemotherapy treatments. But her sons will reunite in Rome on the week of Mother’s Day, days after the youngest of the three was elected leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics.
