From Katherine’s funeral mass at St. Ignatius of Antioch Church in Yardley, PA on August 12, 2025. Katherine’s obituary is available here.
One of Mom-Mom’s favorite movies was “It’s a Wonderful Life.” There are very, very few people in the world, I think, for whom using “It’s a Wonderful Life” as a vehicle to celebrate them wouldn’t seem either lazy or ham handed. But, the thing is, Mom-Mom didn’t just love It’s a Wonderful Life — she lived it. And I don’t mean she just had a “wonderful life” — though boy did she — I mean she embodied the heart and soul of the film.
Just to be sure we’re all on the same page, It’s a Wonderful Life is Frank Capra’s classic movie about a man — George Bailey — who time and time again chooses to care for others at critical junctures in his life. And then, in a moment of doubt, George tells his guardian angel Clarence that he wished he’d never been born, and Clarence gives him the chance to see the world as if he had never existed. Spoiler alert — the world without him is a sadder, darker, lonelier place. George wakes up, reinvigorated to live his life, and the movie ends with him surrounded by the throngs of people he’s touched singing For Auld Lang Syne.
What would this world have been like without Mom-Mom? And I don’t just mean for the many, many of us who are or are connected to her 7 children, her 13 grandchildren, her 6 great grand children. I mean the people Mom-Mom touched in big and small ways. Of course, I mean her two sons-in-law who, to her, were just sons. The same for her daughters in law. I mean her nieces and nephews, and the friends and neighbors she shared her time, her table, her care with. She fostered connection everywhere she went. After my wedding, she became a pen pal with my mother-in-law. She was such a great conversationalist, with pew mates, with checkout line companions, with a stranger on a park bench. I think of the hundreds of people who crossed Mom-Mom’s desk at the bank who probably had no idea, at least not at first, how lucky they were to have just landed with the most honest, caring bank officer you could be believe. Mom-mom’s love – embodied in a gentleness, an infectious gregarious laugh, a sincere interest and curiosity in the lives of each and every person she met – rippled from her heart throughout the world for 95 years. How lucky we are.
I’m lucky. For as long as I can remember, from my earliest days, I saw Mom-Mom at least once a week as a child — every Tuesday night she would come to our house and for what felt like hours before dinner she would play whatever board game or game I would conjure up. There are few more comforting memories than sitting on our big couches in the living room playing cards again with Mom-Mom and that infectious laugh filling our home.
And how Mom-mom loved children. Her grandkids and great grandkids know you could never escape an entry or an exit without a huge hug and kiss. She truly lived seeing god in the face every child. It makes her name to so many of us “Mom” “Mom” as fitting as you can imagine — between her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, all of our spouses, she was a mom to dozens of us not to mention the nieces and nephews, cousins, acquaintances and friends, many more to whom she also embodied motherhood. There is nothing like seeing Mom-mom coo over a new baby – who would coo back enraptured by her warmth and shining smiling face. “Hello little one”
Now, Mom-Mom did have her flaws. She couldn’t whisper. But, you know, even her inability to whisper really just added the warmth of her presence. There was something so comforting at every wedding, celebration mass, and yes, funeral, that I remember attending with Mom-mom to hear her “whisper” a question or a comment about what happening in a quiet moment. The silence now is a little too quiet isn’t it?
But perhaps more than anything, what was so rare, so one-of-one about Mom-mom was the sincerity with which she lived her life. Sincerity. It’s a Wonderful Life may be a pretty corny metaphor to celebrate the life of most people, but for Mom-mom it fits perfectly. Why? Because when Mom-mom lived her faith — and boy did she live her faith — you knew she lived it deep, deep within her heart. Where others work (hopefully) to live with honesty and integrity, honesty and integrity flowed through and from Mom-mom like warmth flowing from the sun. My dad and Uncle Paul, two of her sons, owned a TV repair shop together when I was growing up, and as part of that they would sometimes examine TVs for an insurance adjuster who wanted them to check to see whether someone who claimed their TV had been damaged by say a lighting surge really had been. On one occasion, I guess not noticing the name (their shop was not named “McSorley”) the adjuster dropped off Mom-Mom’s TV at the shop that had been damaged by a lightning surge. The adjuster asked my dad, “Do you think we can really trust this lady?” This story always got a rise when my dad told it because, of all the people in the world, I don’t know that there’s anyone whom the idea to lie about their TV getting struck by lighting was less likely. It’s not that Mom-mom just acted with integrity, it’s that it’s hard to imagine the thought would ever have even crossed her mind.
Faith, hope, and love. Fathers, I don’t know what the fast track process is for sainthood but I would say we better get going. On second thought, sainthood is the last thing Mom-mom would ever ask for. On third thought, that’s another reason why she’s should be on that fast track!
We certainly know there’s one more angel in heaven. In It’s a Wonderful Life, Clarence, George’s guardian angel, is sent by St. Peter to give it another shot at earning his wings. One of Mom-mom’s favorite lines from the movie: after Clarence announces to George that he’s his guardian angel, George looks him up and down and says—“You look like an angel I’d get…” Well I can tell you all we’re very blessed now we’ve now got a guardian angel who surely earned her wings already in record speed.
There’s something deeply moving, and a little uncanny, about sharing a moment with your children talking to their great grandmother about being a child. Not that long ago we were able to sit with Mom-mom and ask her some questions about growing up. And, gosh, in some ways there was that feeling of “things have changed” hearing about little mom-mom running out of her house and crossing a mile of street car tracks to meet up with her lifelong friend Genevieve. Or learning that Mom-mom met our late father, grandfather, great-grandfather Paul when he was an elevator operator. But in many other ways, the basics—the stuff that matters—there is universality across the generations. The joy Mom-mom described having ice cream melt down her hand from an ice cream cone on a hot summer day. Her catholicism, which anchored her family in faith and hope. The deep love she shared for so so many of her dear friends and family who she lost before her time — Genevieve, Aunt Madge Carroll, Mr and Mrs Forsythe, her beloved sister Marie, her brother-in-law Jack, and so many others.
It’s hard to be certain of much in the world today. But I know we’re all certain — there’s simply no doubt — that the near-century that Mom-mom lived was a better, warmer, more loving, more sincere, more joyful place because we all met her, we all knew her. And here’s the thing, regardless of how well each of us in this room knows each other, how well I know each and every one of you, I know—we all know that Katherine, that Mom, that Mom-mom, that Great Mom-Mom truly, deeply loved each one of us. We know its true — you know its true. And that says more than anything about the life we’re so lucky she lived.