Elizabeth Anne Horvath Ramsay, 73, died Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, at the Portage County Health Care Center in Whiting, Wis. She was a member of St. Peter's Catholic Parish of Stevens Point, Wis.

She was born July 13, 1951, at Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C., to Calvin Horvath Jr. and Mary Stephenson Horvath of Hyattsville, Md. She attended Catholic grade school and graduated from Northwestern High School, both in suburban Maryland. She graduated from Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire in theater arts in 1973 and earned a teaching certificate from the Montessori Institute of Washington, D.C., also taking several post-graduate courses. Elizabeth taught at the Penfield School in Milwaukee, Wis., and was active in children's theater in Milwaukee.

Elizabeth married Charles Ramsay of Wisconsin in 1984. They had two children, Tim, in 1986 and Josie, in 1987.They lived in several parts of the country, including Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Iowa, before settling in northeastern Minnesota for 19 years. She worked in various part-time jobs to help support her family, including serving as a guardian ad litem for Minnesota courts for four years. Other jobs she held in her formative years included working as an intern in a Pennsylvania congressman's office, as an assistant stage manager at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., and as a dormitory manager at the Florida School for the Blind.

She dealt with adversity all her life, being hearing-impaired and partially blind in one eye. She rose to the challenges she faced, learning lip-reading and sign language, excelling in theater as a way of communicating to others. She put her heart and soul into helping her autistic son, Tim, to speak and to function successfully in the everyday world. Elizabeth loved all sorts of animals, especially her Senegal parrot, Khumba, and felt a special vocation to go out of her way to speak with disabled children and adults, and their caregivers, wherever she went. She also enjoyed reading mysteries in her spare time and doing painting, singing, and spending time on the phone with loved ones. Elizabeth cherished her role as a mother and friend to many. She was beloved and will be greatly missed by both family and friends.

She is survived by her sister, Mary Gee Murray, of West Virginia; her husband, Charles, of Stevens Point, Wis.; daughter, Josie, of Seattle, Wash.; brother- and sister-in-law, Bill and Kathy Ramsay, of Oshkosh, Wis.; a sister-in-law, Diane Ramsay, of Maryland; special cousins, Edward and Charles Horvath, and Veronica Epley, of Pennsylvania and the Washington, D.C., area; and other relatives.

She was preceded in death by her parents; her son, Tim; and a number of cousins, aunts, and uncles.

Visitation will be at 10 a.m., with funeral Mass at 11 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, at St. Peter's Catholic Church, 800 Fourth Ave., in Stevens Point, Wis. Inurnment will be in Guardian Angel Cemetery in Stevens Point.

Arrangements are by the John J. Buettgen Funeral Home of Schofield, Wis.  Online condolences may be expressed at HonorOne.com