Detroit — Bernadine K. Vigneron, mother of Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron, passed away the evening of Aug. 3 at the age of 88.

Mrs. Vigneron is also survived by her daughter, Patricia, and sons John (Cindy), Ronald (Diane), Mark (Anne Maria) and Gary (Kimberly), as well as 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. She is preceded in death by her beloved husband, Elwin, who died in 2012.

A longtime member of Immaculate Conception Parish in Ira Township (Anchorville), Mrs. Vigneron and her husband faithfully raised their six children in a devout Catholic home where faith was always first.

No one was more supportive of her oldest son Allen’s vocation to the priesthood — and his later calling as a bishop and then archbishop — than Mrs. Vigneron, who grew up with three priests and a religious sister in her immediate family. While her other children were interested in sports, Mrs. Vigneron told The Detroit News in 2009 that for the future archbishop, being a priest was “all he ever wanted to be.”

“Nothing surprises me about him,” she told the newspaper upon her son’s installation as archbishop of Detroit.

A woman of deep prayer, she likely wasn’t surprised at the Lord’s decision to call her son, either. Archbishop Vigneron told a story about how, just before his ordination as a priest in 1975, he once accidentally knocked his mother’s prayer book off her dresser.

“I picked it up, and it opened up pretty easily to a place where the pages were dirty with handprints, and that was where there was a prayer for a son to become a priest,” he said in 2009. “That was the most tangible indication I had of their support before I became a priest.”

Born Bernadine Kott on Jan. 3, 1926, in Center Line, she was the third of eight children of August and Dorothy Kott. The family moved to New Baltimore when she was young, where her father began a Standard Oil gas delivery service. Mrs. Vigneron attended grade school at St. Mary in New Baltimore, and high school at St. Mary in Mt. Clemens.

Through a friend who was dating her older sister, Bernadine met her future husband, Elwin, and married him in September 1947 before settling down to a quiet rural life in Ira Township.

“Mom was the type of parent where she was very loving, yet she was very firm,” said Gary Vigneron, the youngest of her children. “I think that’s something that’s been a great model for myself as a parent, trying to raise my children. My brothers and sisters would say the same thing.”

Mrs. Vigneron always held a special devotion to the Blessed Mother, one she passed on to all her children, said Gary Vigneron.

“I can remember as a kid if I was stressed out or worried about something, she would always tell me, ‘Say a prayer to the Blessed Virgin,’” he said. “She always would rely on her, she told me, for strength in parenting.”

She was also a devoted grandmother and spent much time with her 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, said Gary Vigneron, who has two teenage sons. And she never neglected to make sure all her children turned out right. “One of the things I always remember her saying as we all got married, she would always tell the boys in the family ‘Make sure to be good to your wife,’” he said.

Mrs. Vigneron was a member of the Altar Society at Immaculate Conception Parish and volunteered as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion. She also enjoyed playing cards, dancing, crocheting and watching game shows.

“Her two favorite game shows were Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. We could not call her or talk to her during that hour,” Gary Vigneron laughed.

Mrs. Vigneron’s first job was working for a Sears-Roebuck store in Algonac, and she eventually retired from the U.S. Postal Service.

She, along with the rest of the close-knit family, was thrilled when her son’s appointment in 2009 brought him back to Detroit after six years serving as bishop of Oakland, Calif.

“We’re happy to have him close to home so we can see him more often,” she said of the new archbishop.

A Scripture service and visitation was held for Mrs. Vigneron at Gendernalik Funeral Home in New Baltimore on Aug. 5. A funeral liturgy was to be celebrated Aug. 6 at Immaculate Conception Church in Ira Township. Memorial donations suggested to Immaculate Conception Church, 9764 Dixie Highway, Ira Township; or Sacred Heart Major Seminary, 2701 W. Chicago Blvd., Detroit, MI 48206.