Jean Mary Greiten (née Matushak), 90, of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, went home to the Lord on August 7, 2026, at Lake Country Health Center, surrounded by love.
Jean was born March 8, 1936, in Wausau, Wisconsin, to Philip and Katherine Matushak. She attended Mercy High School in Milwaukee, where a school dance led her to meet a young man from Don Bosco High School named Denis Greiten. They were married on November 17, 1956, beginning a marriage and a partnership that would shape a family, a home, and a legacy of hospitality that continues to this day.
Jean and Denis began their married life in West Allis, in a home Denis purchased in October 1965 while working at the Milwaukee Journal. In 1967, the family moved to Oconomowoc, where Denis founded DG Data Services. In October 1976, Jean and Denis settled into the family home in Oconomowoc that would remain her home for nearly fifty years, sharing their first meal there that Thanksgiving Day. This Thanksgiving marks fifty years since that first meal in the house her son Fr. Gregory still lovingly keeps today.
Jean spent her life in service to others. She worked for the Redemptorist Fathers at their Lac La Belle site, cooking and caring for the elderly priests and brothers there, before serving for a number of years as bookkeeper in the parish office at St. Jerome Parish alongside her dear friend Ruth Poradek. She later became the cook at the Perpetual Help Retreat Center, a role she loved deeply, preparing everything from scratch, from dinner rolls to pies, and becoming known and beloved for her cooking until her retirement at age 65.
Jean and Denis shared a summer site on Lake Camelot with their relatives and close friends Tom and Jean Sternemann, where summers were filled with waterskiing, tubing, Christmas in July, and her famous full turkey dinners served to whoever showed up. Fish fry Fridays at Classic Lanes were a weekly tradition for decades. Jean and Denis also enjoyed years together in a bowling league, and they traveled widely and joyfully, from Hawaii to Our Lady of the Snows Shrine, from California and Arizona to visiting Jean's sister's family in Texas, and even to Germany one Christmas to be with her son Mark and family while serving in the military.
Jean was a woman of deep Catholic faith, active for many years at St. Jerome Parish in Oconomowoc, where she and Denis were often among the first in church every Saturday evening, a half hour before Mass, for her quiet prayer time. That faith, lived first and modeled daily, helped nurture her son's vocation to the priesthood.
Jean's kitchen and her table were where her love was most fully on display. She was known for her cookies, breads, pies, chili, soups, and endless creativity in the kitchen, and for her signature phrase to anyone at her table: "Eat! Eat!" She loved to entertain, welcoming thirty or forty family members into her home for Christmas gatherings that filled every room. She also loved her garden and her flowers, and in her later years, a good Hallmark or Lifetime movie playing in her room.
Jean was preceded in death by her husband, Denis Greiten (January 9, 1935 – March 20, 2000); her parents, Philip Matushak (April 17, 1911 – January 2, 1967) and Katherine Matushak (June 2, 1917 – April 11, 2009); and other loving family members.
She is survived by her three sons, Douglas (Laurie) Greiten of Rosendale, WI, Mark (Kara) Greiten of Watertown, WI, and Fr. Gregory Greiten of Oconomowoc, WI; her grandchildren, Julie Greiten, Jared Greiten, Jacob (Lindsay) Greiten, and Kayleigh (Ryan) Hainstock; her great-grandchildren, Cohan, Kennedy, and Noah; her sister, Nancy (Daniel) Wiencek; and many other relatives and friends whose lives she touched with her warmth, generosity, and unwavering faith.
Jean will be remembered for her kindness, her hospitality, her deep love for her family, and a life lived, quite simply, with all her heart.
Visitation will be held August 20, 2026, from 10:00 am until Mass of Christian Burial at 12:00pm. At Queen of Apostles Church, N35W23360 Capitol Drive, Pewaukee, WI 53072.
In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to Queen of Apostles Parish (Honduras Mission), in honor of Jean's twenty-three years of support for the mission work her son was doing in Honduras, or to the Perpetual Help Retreat Center, in gratitude for Jean's many years of service as cook for the Redemptorist Fathers and Brothers, and for the many retreatants who loved her meals throughout the years.
