Mary Kathryn Trnka

Mary Kathryn Trnka, age78, formerly of Burnsville MN, passed away in the early hours of 2 January 2026 at home with family. She had recently moved to Saint Peter MN in her sister’s home after a diagnosis of metastasized pancreatic cancer.

Mary was born on 11 March 1947 to Emil A. Trnka Sr. and Agnes R. (Sweda) Trnka at the St. Peter Community Hospital. She attended Washington School, then John Ireland School, and graduated from Saint Peter High School class of 1965 participating in production of the Peterian year book her graduating year.

In the early 1970’s, Mary associated with Save the Children Foundation. She traveled to Cherokee NC during a four day event as sponsor to a young man of the Cherokee people.

After high school, Mary was a secretary at Green Giant (Le Sueur). In 1979, she moved to Minneapolis. Her career was varied in the administrative field - working for Pillsbury in marketing & research areas; office manage/executive secretary for a non-profit religious & education group; legal secretary for tax attorneys at the firm Faegre & Benson; CB Commercial Real Estate; Green Giant (Edina); CB Richard Ellis transcribing marketing& legal documents from handwritten copy; medical transcriptionist with MN Gastroenterology and Eggleston-Medscribe; Project Coordinator with United Health Group; Senior administrative work with Medica and 3M; Coordinator/External Relations with University of St. Thomas School of Law - with varied temporary positions in between. Some of Mary’s positions saw her as the go-to person for using Microsoft products and Access databases. During her career she attained status as Certified Professional Secretary with top honors at Minnesota School of Business.

Mary was an artist with a paintbrush. She had a preference for watercolor but lent her hand to acrylic, oil, as well as charcoal. She also led an art class of several weeks duration. Mary thoroughly enjoyed crosswords (the difficult ones); and reading various genres: Star Trek, mysteries, devotional, and even cookbooks like they were novels.

Mary worshiped with the multi-denominational People Of Praise Community, Servant Branch with emphasis on music & song.

She was preceded in death by her parents, brother Emil Jr., and uncles & aunts. Mary is survived by her sister Charlene, sister-in-law Carolyn, nieces Laura Trnka and Emily (Karl) Fischer and great niece Sophie.

Remembrance service will be held on Saturday, January 31, 2026 at 1:30 p.m. at Sunrise Church in St. Peter. Inurnment will be later at Saint Joseph’s Catholic Cemetery in Lexington Township. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to Celiac Disease Foundation (celiac.org) or Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (pancan.org).