Grieving mothers work to bring ‘Angel of Hope’ to Woodbury

Mary Divine, Pioneer Press
·8 min read

Julie Rageth and Lynne Sonnek are linked by gaping holes in their hearts.

The Woodbury mothers both suddenly lost daughters within a year of each other — Natalie Ann Valitchka at age 32 in 2020 and Andra Lee Sonnek at age 24 in 2019.

The women are spearheading an effort to raise money to build an Angels of Hope memorial near Woodbury City Hall to help other grieving parents.

The memorial will include a wall for plaques with names and information about children who have died. An annual vigil will be held at the site.

“It’s a lonely thing, losing a child,” Rageth said. “So many people whom we have met, they don’t have people to go to. They don’t have anybody to talk to. If we can reach one family and help them along, that’s a win. We just want people to remember them.”

Here’s how Rageth wants Natalie to be remembered: She loved doing cartwheels, going fly fishing, swimming in the ocean and hiking in the mountains. She loved Quinn, her English cocker spaniel. She loved pelicans. She had curly red hair and wore aviator sunglasses, overalls and a backwards baseball cap. She had a tattoo of Lake Superior on the top of her foot.

“She made everything just a bit more fun,” Rageth said. “Natalie would make you laugh. She had a giggle that made everybody want to giggle with her.”

Natalie, a student finance adviser, graduated from Woodbury High School in 2005, where she was captain of the girls swimming and golf teams, Rageth said. “She was a wonderful mentor,” she said. “The younger girls really looked up to her.”

Andra Sonnek was known among her friends as “the jokester,” her mother said. She was the life of any party. She was a Minnesota Timberwolves “superfan.” Her favorite player was Karl-Anthony Towns. Her lip-sync rendition of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” was legendary.

“She was ‘unapologetically herself’ is how her friends described her at her funeral,” Sonnek said. “People loved being with her. She loved to make people laugh. She had a lot of friends, and everybody was her best friend.”

Andra graduated from Stillwater Area High School in 2013 and was working at a tanning salon at the time of her death. Wednesday would have been her 28th birthday.

“For me, one of the hardest things now is all of her friends, of course, are at that getting-married age,” Sonnek said. “She should have been in all these weddings.

“It’s just emotionally draining. Some of them, I can’t even go to, but the ones that I do go to, it is so painful sitting there. You’re still so happy for the couple, and you just want to show your support and love for them, but emotionally, inside, you’re thinking, ‘We’re not going to get that. We’re not going to get to sit there for that wedding for Andra — for her sister to be her maid of honor, for the future kids.’ Sometimes I feel that it’s selfish, and I shouldn’t be thinking that, but it is so real. Some days are harder than others, but what an impact that makes when your future is different.”

Both women declined to say how their daughters died. “We’re going to talk about how they lived,” Rageth said.

‘The Christmas Box’

Rageth got the idea for erecting an Angels of Hope memorial after a trip to Duluth in June 2021 with her sister and niece to mark Natalie’s birthday; Natalie went to the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

“We were walking on the boardwalk, just past Fitger’s, and we saw this beautiful statue of this angel,” Rageth said. “The three of us walked around the pavers and read all the names, and it was very, very touching. We sat there for a long time. I came home, and I just thought, ‘This is something that I would love to pursue.’”

The angel memorials are based on a book called “The Christmas Box” by Salt Lake City author Richard Paul Evans. In the book, a woman mourns the loss of her child at the base of an angel monument. Evans commissioned the first angel statue in 1994 in Salt Lake City in response to reports that grieving parents were seeking out the angel as a place to grieve and heal.

There are now more than 160 Angels of Hope memorials around the world, including seven in Minnesota.

Each angel statue is forged in Salt Lake City and is 4 feet, 3 inches tall, has an armspan of 5 feet, 2 inches, and is made of bronze. Alongside the statue are the engraved names of the deceased children, with a message from their parents, friends and family honoring each child.

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The Woodbury memorial will be located in the park next to City Hall. City officials have designated a spot near the city’s veterans and public safety memorials, but the Angels of Hope memorial will have its own “distinct and separate space,” said Michelle Okada, the city’s director of parks and recreation. Okada said city officials felt strongly that the project was one the city should support.

“It’s so heartbreaking when someone loses a child, and many in our community are grieving these devastating losses every day,” Okada said. “We hope (the memorial) will be a place for families to find comfort, connection and peace.”

The angel is already in Woodbury, stored in a crate at the city’s public-works department. “She’s protecting them all over there,” Rageth said. “She’s waiting to get out of the box.”

Plans call for a groundbreaking in the spring and a dedication vigil to be held in June, she said.

‘Needed each other’

Rageth, 65, and Sonnek, 58, met through UpLift Guided Fitness for Women in Woodbury, which is owned by Rageth’s sister, Jill Strand.

“We’d been through similar tragic life events, and we just bonded immediately,” Sonnek said. “It’s a connection like no other — to have another mom who went through exactly what you did.”

Said Rageth: “I hadn’t seen Lynne for a while at the club after Andra died, so when I did see her, I was so happy to connect again. When Natalie died, I was so happy to have her be there for me. We got together because we had to, because we needed each other.”

Sonnek and her husband, Rick, live in the city’s Sunrise Meadows neighborhood; Rageth and her husband, Jeff, live just three miles away in Woodlane Hills.

During the pandemic, they kept in contact through daily phone calls and “many, many texts,” Rageth said. “We could say anything to each other because we knew.”

“Julie is my Number 1 go-to,” Sonnek said. “We both have a lot of friends and family, but grief is so lonely. I have good friends and family that I feel that I could call, but I don’t want to always bog them down with my emotions. Julie’s the one who is going to get me in my honest form. She’s the one who’s going to get the call when I say, ‘I am having a s— day,’ and she understands it. She can either say something that will make me laugh or we will just cry together.”

When the women spot a cardinal or an eagle, they immediately feel a connection with their daughters — and will reach out to one another to share the sighting. Same with seeing the time of 11:11 on a clock, they say.

“If I see 11:11 on my computer, guess who immediately gets a text?” Sonnek said. “I’ll say, ‘It’s 11:11, Julie. Guess what? The angels are thinking of us today. They’re with us.’ It just means that things are lining up.”

Said Rageth: “I can’t tell you how many times we’ve texted or called or taken a picture of that cardinal or an eagle. That brings us a lot of comfort.”

The women hope the angel memorial, which will be surrounded by a flower garden, also will be a comfort.

“We want to welcome everybody in,” Rageth said. “We really believe this angel will give a lot of hope to our community.”

Angel of Hope fundraiser

The Spirit Song Choir will hold a concert to raise money for the Angels of Hope memorial at 3 p.m. Sunday at King of Kings Lutheran Church in Woodbury.

The choir also will perform “You Do Not Walk Alone,” sacred songs of gratitude, remembrance and community, at 7 p.m. Saturday at Our Lady of Victory Chapel at St. Catherine University in St. Paul.

Donations to the Angels of Hope memorial in Woodbury can be made through the Woodbury Community Foundation.

For more information, go to https://www.woodburyfoundation.org/angel-of-hope-memorial-fund

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