A Legacy of Fertility, Cycles and Nutrition
For Rosemary Shannon Imrick experiencing childhood on a homestead outside of Fort Wayne, Indiana was idyllic. She and her eight siblings were loyal friends. From gardening to scientific research, her mom and dad empowered them to follow their interests. They taught them they could do whatever they put their minds to. Through regular work and prayer routines, plus a “real love for stability,” Rosemary’s parents created a home imbued with purpose. That, Rosemary said, really impacted her life trajectory. It’s been foundational to the choices she’s making to carry on her mom’s legacy today.
Early on, Rosemary learned from her mom, Marilyn Shannon, that life is bigger than oneself and love serves others. It wasn’t just Rosemary and her siblings that felt Marilyn’s love. It was also Marilyn’s students at Purdue Fort Wayne where she taught biology. And Rosemary’s friends. All these souls were welcomed into Marilyn’s heart with loving care and keen interest.
“We could come at night, we could come whenever, and Mom always had the house open and welcoming,” Rosemary says. “And she was always in the thick of it with our friends. She became their mentor. Everyone just loved her.”
Collaborating
Beyond those reached by Marilyn in person were women everywhere who read her meticulously researched book, Fertility, Cycles & Nutrition, published by Couple to Couple League. Marilyn had a true passion for helping women understand how food can change your quality of life and your fertility. Rosemary remembers countless nights of Marilyn staying up late to research, notate, and write.
“When I still lived at home, I would come down at two o’clock and she would be typing away,” says Rosemary. “She practiced what she preached. She would take her vitamins and she was extremely energetic. And she would have piles of articles around her. She would just absorb it late at night because, well, that’s when it was quiet.”
It wasn’t long before Rosemary became a collaborator in her mom’s work. “I think she started writing the book when I was in fourth grade. As mom worked on the editions going forward from that, I became more and more involved because I enjoy the sciences too,” she says.
While Rosemary’s profession became teaching English, she poured her love of science into assisting her mom. “I would get calls at like 10:30 at night. ‘I need another research article,’ or ‘Can you email me something over?’” says Rosemary. “And it was fun. She would email me lists. ‘Okay, I need things on B12 and energy, and B12 and stress, and B12 and PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome).”
A Treasure Trove
The result of Marilyn’s late hours of careful research, aided by Rosemary, was a legacy and treasure trove of nutritional wisdom ahead of its time. “It was all based on research, that’s why the book has stood the test of time,” Rosemary says. “She was incredibly picky about what research she would base her counseling on. I know because I went through about 4,000 abstracts from researched articles for her fourth edition, and narrowed it down by about half and then narrowed it down again.”
Marilyn knew these research findings could tangibly help women and their babies, and that fueled her determination to share the very best findings. While living a life replete with ongoing education and student mentees, she never left her family behind. With the phone always ringing, she carefully balanced a full schedule of homeschooling, teaching, and taking counseling calls — dedicating a great amount of her energy towards counseling women suffering from infertility and miscarriages.
“She always managed to balance it. It was a struggle sometimes, I’m sure, but she just saw that it was an outgrowth of her service to her own family,” Rosemary says. Rosemary remembers how, after giving a lecture at her university job, Marilyn would be surrounded by a crowd of students wanting advice.
Speaking Truth
What drew so many to her? “She actually cared and she actually knew things,” Rosemary says. “Young women realized they could ask her about problems they have, like infertility, because when she would teach human anatomy and physiology, she would use examples from her own life. She would mention things like NFP without apology. And people were curious. And it wasn’t just the young women, even young men. I remember laughing because she had a weightlifter in her class, and she was so curious that they were going on about the different muscle groups and how to strengthen them. She was always interested in everybody. And she truly did care.”
Rosemary recalls once receiving a call during Marilyn’s break in the midst of giving students a final exam. “She says, ‘I have a young woman, she’s my student. This is the final. I’m never going to see her again,’” Rosemary remembers. “‘She’s abortion minded and she doesn’t know what to do. I need you to call up our friend who does crisis pregnancy counseling, and I need her number before the end of this test.’ That’s just the kind of woman she was. She absolutely cared about each particular person. She had high expectations. You knew she would speak the truth and she cared.”
Over the course of her life, Rosemary’s teaching — in the classroom, as a Couple to Couple League teacher, and through her book — helped thousands of women make healthier choices. “Her legacy was far bigger than just our family,” Rosemary describes. “All those late nights that I just kind of took for granted were really life changing for many, many people.” Today, Rosemary is carrying on her mom’s incredible legacy, for her own family and all women.
Shannon Haven
When her mother passed away in 2020, Rosemary stepped back from her own teaching job to finish homeschooling her youngest sister. At the same time, her father was considering shutting down the beloved family homestead, unsure how he could manage it anymore. Rosemary says, “We had a family meeting and looked at turning it into an agricultural business so it could be passed down to children and still be a home for my brother who’s a priest to come back to. And Dad always loved gardening and had a dream of having a market garden.”
So, under Rosemary and her husband’s leadership, the family is developing Shannon Haven — a peaceful retreat and working market garden. “My dad always had this vision of a place where any of his children could come back, no matter what their age was,” Rosemary says. “We’re establishing that, making sure it’s set for the future.”
Many of Rosemary’s twelve children (from birth and international adoption) enjoy helping in the garden. She leads her children in a modified homeschool schedule to match the seasons. “Honestly, every child has different interests, but a lot of times children absolutely love growing things and growing things that they can then eat themselves,” she says. The family grows a little of everything, from winter storage crops to Vietnamese black sugarcane, but tropical herbs are their specialty.
Continuing Research
While carrying on the family homestead legacy, Rosemary is also carrying on the legacy of her mom’s book, Fertility, Cycles and Nutrition. She’s building on her mom’s sturdy foundation by making sure that the already established findings on vitamins have up-to-date references. She’s also beefing up the newest chapter on herbs, pairing her own garden experimentation with a heavy dose of research. Not coincidentally, some of the tropical herbs she grows show immense health benefits, including as a natural remedy for infertility. “There is so much out there,” she says. “What I’d like to see is Mom’s research extended naturally in the direction she was already going.”
In her latest edition of Fertility, Cycles & Nutrition, Marilyn had incorporated some herbal research, such as about Chasteberry extract and saw palmetto, but more could be added. “You’ll see the lightest chapter of her book is where she had just started into that area,” says Rosemary. One day while researching crops to add to her dad’s lineup of ginger and turmeric, Rosemary stumbled across articles on ginger’s impact on male fertility. “Being my mother’s daughter, I’m like, oh my goodness, I have to start researching this,” she remembers.
Speaking of Thai ginger or galangal, Rosemary says, “If given as a supplement, it actually reduces DNA fragmentation in sperm, so it’s very good for male infertility. Turmeric, ginger, and Thai ginger are just exceedingly good for preserving DNA, for ideal motility, a very large area for male fertility concerns.” Turmeric is also showing great promise in studies about polycystic ovary syndrome, a significant issue women face today, she says.
Benefits of Herbs
When it comes to research, Rosemary has inherited another legacy – her mom’s high standards. “You want placebo-controlled, double-blind studies, ideally with many participants,” she describes. “The larger the sample number, the better, because what you’re looking for is not an anomaly. You want to see a consistent pattern of results. So that’s exactly what I look for. I’m very picky because my mom was picky about what the research is.”
Rosemary anticipates there may be an explosion of findings over the next five years about the benefits of herbs for health and fertility. She says, “They already know, for example, turmeric is good for joints, it’s anti-inflammatory. It’s also good for many other glands. I know my mom would have been incredibly excited about this new research coming out.”
She adds a word of caution: “You do need to be a little bit careful with herbs, that’s why my mom saved them for last.” Some can be truly medicinal and should be taken under the care of a medical provider. Turmeric and ginger though, are culinary herbs used in everyday cooking in many parts of the world, very safe to integrate into your diet, she says. “Ginger and turmeric are not really rare, they’re just not discovered yet by a lot of people,” Rosemary says. “They really have benefits along with being safe, and that’s why I’d like to focus research on that.”
A Legacy Continued
Whether in the garden dirt or poring over research abstracts, Rosemary hopes her work is a continuation of her mom’s legacy of life-changing service.
“When I was in college, I did quite a bit of traveling and everywhere I went, especially in Catholic circles, people would find out my name and say, ‘Oh my goodness, thank your mom for me. I was able to have a baby,’” Rosemary remembers. “Sometimes they’d hold up the baby. I would like her work that really blessed so many people to be able to continue. Because the research and things she was telling people to do are still just as valid now. So, to keep it up to date so it doesn’t become obsolete just by the dates on the research articles. And then, since there is this cutting-edge new research out there, just to add it the next time there’s a printing of the book, because she would have loved to see that information get out to people.”
From her mom’s beautiful ministry and legacy, Rosemary has seen how resolving infertility struggles can sometimes be the result of little changes. She recounts the story of a woman who attended Marilyn’s wake. Stopping to speak with her, Rosemary learned the woman was a former student of her mom’s. She had been told she couldn’t have children, but Marilyn told her to pick up her book and follow the nutritional advice in it— and she had twins.
“Mom’s book is full of examples of how the smallest change can make a difference,” Rosemary says. “And that’s life-changing. That’s worth keeping going. And that’s what I decided, that I just wanted to make sure that her work stays out there to help.”
Written by Savanna Duca for Family Foundation magazine. CCL’s Fertility, Cycles and Nutrition can be found in the CCL store here.