Biography

Alma is the matriarch of the Wahlberg family. As the mother of nine children, she has seen it all. Alma worked as a bank clerk and nurse's aide to make ends meet while raising her 9 children in tight quarters on the Dorchester, MA streets where she grew up.

Mother of Arthur E. Donnelly, Paul Wahlberg (aka Paul J. Wahlberg), James M. Wahlberg, Tracey A. Marcarelli, Michelle Wahlberg, Robert Wahlberg (aka Robert G. Wahlberg), Donnie Wahlberg (aka Donald E. Wahlberg) and Mark Wahlberg (aka Mark R. Wahlberg) and the late Deborah E. Donnelly, all by her marriage to Donald E. Wahlberg Sr.. Some of her children later adopted their mother's maiden name (Donnelly).

Her oldest daughter, Deborah E. Donnelly (born Wahlberg), died on September 2, 2003, the very same day Mark Wahlberg's daughter, Ella Rae Wahlberg, was born.

Her birth name was Alma Elaine Donnelly, daughter of Leone Floyd (Brisbois) and Arthur Ambrose Donnelly. Her ancestry is eleven sixteenths Irish, as well as one eighth French-Canadian, one eighth English, and one sixteenth Scottish. Her paternal grandparents were born in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, and her maternal grandfather in Winchester, Ontario, Canada.

She freely admitted to Anderson Cooper that she didn't know what she was doing when she was raising her children. She had instilled the value that her kids who are parents to always be in their kids' lives.