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 Gwen
Cecilia (Billings) Coniker was born in Chicago on September 27,
1939. She met her future husband, Jerry,
when she was 15 years old, while they were both attending St.
Gregory High School. They were married on the Feast of the
Assumption, August 15, 1959 and consecrated their marriage to Jesus
through Mary at Our Lady’s side altar. They had no idea then what
Our Lady was calling them to.
Seeing the decline in Christian values in society, they
soon became deeply involved in the right-to-life and family values
movement. Gwen loved children and always said she would like to have
a dozen. “There’s nothing like a baby!” she would say. Her
first one was Maureen Therese, born premature on June 22, 1960. Then
followed Kathy Lynne, Laurie Ann, Margaret Rose, Sharon Marie,
Michael John, and Robert Anthony.
The direction of their lives was drastically changed on April 28,
1971, (Feast of St. Louis de Montfort) when they  made
their consecration to Jesus through Mary according to the de
Montfort formula. This is the same consecration that changed the
life of Karol Wojtyla, now Pope John Paul II, whose papal motto is Totus
Tuus, Mater Ecclesia (Totally yours, Mother of the Church).
After making this consecration, Jerry and Gwen were convinced more
than ever that the battle to end abortion and save the family was
primarily a spiritual one, thus they made the decision to devote
their full-time to the work of the Church.
On May 13th (Feast of Our Lady of Fatima) that same year,
the Conikers sold their home and business. On September 8th
(Our Lady’s birthday), they moved their family to Fatima, Portugal
where they lived for two years. During that time, their third son,
Joseph Vincent, was born at a hospital in Lisbon. After what turned
out to be a two-year “retreat-preparation” time for their work
in the Church, the Conikers returned to the United States in June of
1973. They began to work for Fr. Bernard Geiger, O.F.M. Conv., who
at the time was the National Director of St. Maximilian Kolbe’s
Knights of the Immaculata. Soon after, their ninth child, James
Francis, was born—the first of four Cesarean births. Maria Ann was
born a year later on September 4th.
Jerry and Gwen founded the Apostolate for Family Consecration in the
Holy Year of 1975 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. When she became
pregnant with her eleventh child, Gwen was willing to risk death
despite the warnings of her doctor, in order to give birth. Theresa
Marie, a healthy baby girl, was born just after Christmas in 1975. A
year later Gwen miscarried their twelfth child, “Angelica”. In
October of 1977, Gwen gave birth to Mary Elizabeth, their thirteenth
child.
Jerry and Gwen were married for forty-two (42) years, and their love
for each other grew every day. They had the joy of watching their
family grow, first with their 13 children, then 11 faithful spouses,
and 52 grandchildren (and still counting!), who through the grace of
God are all in the Faith.
Their
love for God and each other blossomed into an international
Apostolate for Family Consecration movement for families with four
interrelated family ministries—Familyland TV Network, Catholic
Familyland centers all over the world, Consecration in Truth
Catechetics and Lay Ecclesial Teams—with members on five
continents.
Gwen shared a kindred spirit with both Pope John Paul II and
 Mother
Teresa. From 1984 - 2000, Gwen was privileged to have had nine papal
encounters. Pope John Paul II was able to read her soul as he looked
deeply into her eyes. On April 29, 1999, the Holy Father appointed
Jerry and Gwen Coniker to be members of his Pontifical Council for
the Family, which advises the papacy on family matters in the world.
The Coniker family represented the
theme—"Children, the Springtime of Hope for Family and
Society" in the Jubilee Year 2000, at St. Peter’s Square with
the Pope. On October 7, 2001, Jerry and Gwen both received the Pro
Ecclesia et Pontifice award from Pope John Paul II through
Bishop Gilbert Sheldon of Steubenville, and on December 13th
of that same year, they were received in the Pontifical order of the
Knights of St. Michael of the Wing by the crown prince of Portugal.
Thus Gwen was named “Lady Guenevere.”
On November 2, 2001, Gwen was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the
liver and was told that she had less than a year to live. This
illness was actually contracted by a blood transfusion that she had
during one of her Cesarean births in the mid 1970’s. She
peacefully accepted her sickness and physical sufferings. She had no
regrets. She loved all her children and she loved life. In May of
2002, she was diagnosed with cancer, and her last days were spent in
very intense pain. She passed away at 5:30 a.m. on June 15, 2002 in
the arms of her loving husband after the Anointing of the Sick by
Fr. Bernard Geiger (who for many years has been the Coniker’s
spiritual director) at her
 home
at Catholic Familyland in Bloomingdale, Ohio.
She was sixty-two (62) years old. It is no coincidence that
she died on June 15th, which was the Feast of the Sacred
Heart in 1917—the same year that Our Lady appeared to the three
Shepherd Children at Fatima, Portugal. This is a movable feast on
which the Apostolate for Family Consecration celebrates its
founding.
 Gwen
was buried on June 22, 2002, on the forty-second birthday of her
first child, Maureen. She is laid to rest at Catholic Familyland,
Bloomingdale, Ohio, in the crypt of
The Apostolate’s St. John Vianney Oratory Chapel behind the altar
of our Blessed Mother that contains a relic of St. Louis de Montfort
and a copy of the original handwritten manuscript of his famous
work, "True Devotion to Mary." A “Tomb to the Unborn
Child” (commemorating the millions of aborted babies) is also
present near Gwen’s grave, on the outside wall of the Vianney
Oratory Chapel, giving testimony to a wife and mother who gave her
all and totally fulfilled God’s will.
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