Lillian Bazis

Lillian Bazis, Beloved Mother × Wife × Daughter × Sister × Aunt × Friend 

Lillian Bazis (née Ciarallo) was born on June 3, 1936 to Ernesto and Giovanina (Joan) Ciarallo, of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. The eldest of four children, Lillian graduated from Canonsburg High School in 1954. It was while working at the local soda shop, Jeffrey’s Drug Store, that she met her future husband, Casimir Bazis, of Pittsburgh, who was in town practicing for a performance with his boy band, The Marksmen. He was smitten with her undeniable beauty, and she by his charm, wit and good looks. The two were married on September 10, 1955, in St. Patrick’s Church in Canonsburg. They honeymooned in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, a place they both loved and enjoyed visiting into their later years.

Lil and Cas lived in Canonsburg until 1963, during which time Cas worked as a Registered Land Surveyor for Lorenzi, Dodds and Gunnill, and Lil worked as a homemaker, caring for Mike, born in 1956 and Sandy, born in 1959. Sandy recalls her very first memory ever in life as sitting in Mom’s lap, drinking the last few drops of Mom’s coffee from a cup with a distinctive wheat sheaf pattern, clearly recognizable as our grandmother’s. It must have been a great comfort as a new mother to have her own mother and grandmother just a few houses away on Murdock Street, her babies never far from the embrace of grandparents and great grandparents.

The couple moved to Oxon Hill, Maryland, in 1963, when Cas was transferred to manage his company’s new D.C. office. Two years later they moved to the Heather Hills section of Bowie, Maryland. It is here that Dan and Lisa were born, in 1968 and 1970, respectively.

Lillian was as perfect a mother as one could ever hope to have. Gentle, loving, proud, fiercely loyal, forgiving and always, always on our sides. She and Dad built our home on joy and laughter, teaching us respect, to work hard, and raising us to know the importance of family and friendship. We visited grandparents in Canonsburg and Pittsburgh for all the holidays, treasuring the time in those special Italian and Lithuanian households, spending time with cousins, aunts and uncles, partaking of, and learning to create, those special cultural foods that are the stuff of our dreams now, but that, when you are a child, become ingrained in you as if part of your DNA. Growing up, Mom’s maternal grandparents lived across the street from her, and she had a special bond with them that, despite the language barrier, continued and flourished in her children.

The brave move to Maryland separated Lil from her immediate family, but enabled her to focus fully on building her own with Cas. She was late in learning to drive, so relied heavily on Cas, Mike and Sandy for doctor and grocery trips, and though she became a very good driver she never would drive the Beltway, drawing the line at that craziness. Descended from talented bakers, Lil went into business with her sister-in-law, Mary, making delicious and exquisitely decorated wedding cakes. Lisa and Dan would be called upon to sit in the back of the wood-paneled station wagon, bracing all the cakes while she drove them ever-so-carefully to their final destinations. Her creativity knew no bounds, as she made us all crazy fun birthday cakes that could rival those on today’s baking shows: a hamburger, a pair of jeans, the Cookie Monster, a treasure map, as well as Sandy’s favorite, made lovingly for her every single year by Mom: Italian rum cake. She continued her birthday cake-making tradition happily, affectionately, for her grandchildren.

Lil and Cas welcomed all their children’s friends with open arms. It wasn’t unusual for there to be an extra kid at the dinner table fairly often, and neighbors and friends of the whole family would stop by the house on Heming Lane on Christmas Eve for the annual Bazis family open house. Lil and Cas put in a pool in 1976, and were always up for hosting crab feasts, swim birthday parties for Lisa in June, band parties, post homecoming or prom parties, graduation parties and cookouts and fun with the local cousins. Mom made it all seem effortless. She had a generous nature and a loving, open-hearted way about her that attracted our friends to our house. Everyone always felt comfortable and cared for by our Mom, and more than a few of our friends felt like she was a second Mom to them.

Mom and Dad were adventurers, enjoying annual trips to Jamaica or Barbados in the 1980s, sometimes taking our grandmother along. We had splendid family vacations to Disneyland, Cape Cod and Ocean City, Maryland. Lisa remembers fondly occasionally being woken in the dark on a cold winter weekend morning to go running around on the beach in Ocean City for the day in the blustery wind with salt spray coming off the ocean. Mom and Dad treated us to pizza and hot chocolate while they had Irish coffees and everyone tried to thaw frozen hands and feet and noses.

Growing up in the days before the internet and cell phones distracted us from one another, we spent hours and hours in the heart of our home with Mom: The Kitchen. The Kitchen, from whence emanated all the good smells, the delectables, the nightly dinners (always with 2 veg and a salad!), spaghetti sauce on Sundays and oodles of Christmas cookies. We’d sit at the counter with our homework, well out of her way, chatting about our day, our friends, what she was cooking. We watched her. We watched and we learned and we felt the love she created in that place, that love that reached every corner of our home.

Lil spent many years as a homemaker before entering the workforce as an administrator for Cas’s business. Later in life she worked in retail before a lengthy stint as the receptionist for D.C. law firm Carr, Goodson & Lee. She was the perfect person for that job: classy, capable, caring and confident in handling clients and attorneys. She was beloved by the staff at Carr Goodson, and they treated her well, knowing they could always count on her.

As time passed, Lil’s kids left the nest, three of the four returning with life partners she adored. She would remark that she couldn’t have chosen better herself Sandy’s husband Chris, Mike’s wife, Carol, and Lisa’s husband, Dave. She grew to love their spouses as if they were her own children, and when grandkids entered the scene she threw herself into the role of Nana with her whole heart and soul. She attended ball games, dance recitals, gymnastics meets, birthday parties, family dinners, choir and band concerts, graduations and – fit to burst with pride – the Naval Commissioning, then later the Winging Ceremony, of her eldest grandson, Nick, who has become a U.S. Navy helicopter pilot. She simply could not have loved Nick, Lily, Chris, Nick, Carys and Michael more. They were the light of her world and she was thrilled to watch them grow into such interesting and accomplished people. She was so, so proud of each one of them.

Lil got to see a bit of the world, traveling to Italy with her sister-in-law, Irene, to Paris with Sandy, Lisa and niece Judy, then again to France – this time Normandy -- with Cas, Sandy and Lisa. She joined the whole family for Dave’s surprise trip to Niagara Falls, Canada for Lisa’s 40th birthday. And then there was Australia. In 2004 Lil accompanied Lisa on a business trip to Sydney, exploring on her own during the day, then taking in the sights with Lisa as time allowed. Together they visited the Sydney Opera House, the Sydney Aquarium, Taronga Zoo, Manley Beach and the Blue Mountains. They climbed Sydney Harbour Bridge together, a feat of which she was exceptionally proud, as she was 68 years old at the time and more than a bit nervous! The pinnacle of that trip for them both, however, was traveling to Melbourne to finally meet our extended family – relatives on her grandmother’s side with whom Lil and her mother had exchanged letters and phone calls for years, but had never before met in person. That trailblazing trip was lifechanging for our entire family, establishing lifelong bonds between the American and Aussie sides of the family. Lil made one more trip to Australia in 2010 for cousin Renée Rapone’s wedding to Jason Van Beelen, this time with Sandy, Chris and Dan. Lil kept in close contact with our Aussie families, recently spending time in Florida and Virginia with cousins Nicole and Tony Rapone, then hosting them for dinner at her home in April when they visited the U.S. as part of an extended tour celebrating their 70th birthdays.

When not globe-trotting, Mom stayed busy and active with simple things and always had some project or plan in the works, be it reupholstering a chair or painting a room in her condo. The complex where she lived prohibits bird feeders because of the weed-seeds they produce and the rodents attracted to debris left on the ground. But Mom loved the birds. So at Christmas 2023 Mike bought her a suet feeder (no seeds, no mess!) and installed it right outside the dining room window, amongst the shrubs, for easy viewing. She loved watching the birds come and go and would sit for hours while browsing her iPad or coloring, enjoying the show. The feeder attracted cardinals more than any other species. Mom ascribed to the belief that if a cardinal appears, angels are nearby. This brought her comfort, as she missed her departed loved ones, especially her son Dan, so very much. One behavior common to cardinals is that during courtship and breeding season, the male will feed the female. Mom and Mike witnessed this firsthand, up close, and she marveled at how they took care of each other. Not unlike how Mom took care of us. We were never hungry for food or for love.

Life wasn’t always easy, and for Lil it was not without its challenges. Marriage is hard work, we lose those we love through death and other circumstances, and the older we get the more health issues we encounter. These things chipped away at her happiness, dimming her joy, but never, ever her fierce love and loyalty to her kids. Her circle of friends and family became smaller as the years went by, but many of those friendships were decades long and those bonds helped see her through the death of her husband, Cas, in 2013, the devastating, unexpected loss of her beloved son, Dan, in 2020 and the declining health and eventual passing of her younger sister, Diana, in 2023.

We remember her as a shining example of a life well lived. We picture her swimming laps in the pool at Heming Lane, tending her flower garden, watching for cardinals at the bird feeder, learning Italian via Duolingo, playing card games with her grandkids, enjoying Florida beaches and boat excursions, face lifted towards the sun, laughing with us. We remember her and will love her eternally.

Lillian was preceded in death by her parents, Ernesto and Giovanina, her sisters, Olga and Diana, her brother, Ernest, and her son, Dan. She is survived by her son Mike, daughters Sandy and Lisa, sons-in-law Chris and Dave, daughter-in-law, Carol, grandchildren Nick, Lily, Nick, Chris, Carys and Michael, sister-in-law, Gloria, and numerous nieces and nephews.