Mary Mastalish

PAID OBITUARY

Mary V. Mastalish passed away on Friday, July 26, 2019, at the Harbor Campus in Port Washington after a lengthly battle with dementia. She was 73 years old.

Although mom was a resident of The Harbor Campus for several years, she was born in Milwaukee and lived there until moving to Port Washington in 2014.  

Mom grew up on the south side of Milwaukee and would talk about walking to the corner stores to purchase ice cream cones or candy for a few pennies. She would say every corner seemed to have a local store and everyone knew everyone. Her family belonged to St. Josaphat Basilica and she grew up going to Catholic school.  

Shortly after high school, mom started working for the City of Milwaukee at the Central Library downtown. Initially she worked in data processing, which included various duties and as time went on, her roles would change as the times changed but she ended up retiring from there with over 30 years of experience. A co-worker of my mom told me how, when they first started back in 1965, they would go to watch silent movies at the museum during lunch for five cents.

They would also roam the many floors of the library because besides the three floors above ground, there are four floors beneath the building which are called the tiers. Mom even took me down to the tiers on a few occasions and we both commented on how fortunate mom was to work in such a beautiful and historic building full of treasures.  

Mom had a lifelong passion for books and would get really excited telling me about which books recently came in. She never grew tired of reading, and her constant companions were Danielle Steel and John Grisham.   

After mom retired, she volunteered for Interfaith Caregivers, driving people to appointments or helping them with grocery shopping. She also spent a lot of time volunteering at her church’s school, helping tutor little ones with reading and math.  

She enjoyed attending the Wilson Park Senior center on a weekly basis and had a lot of friends there. She was also a life long card player and her favorite card game was sheepshead. She would play whenever she had the chance and never lost her touch.  

Another passion was her life-long love of animals. She always had dogs or cats and was a huge advocate of adopting animals from local shelters.

Mary Mastalish is survived by her daughter Lynn (David) Bauer of Saukville; grandsons Jeremy and Nathan; and great-grandchildren Lilah, Elliot and Oliver. She was the sister-in-law of Ginger Gostomski and Carol Gostomski and is further survived by other relatives and friends.  

She was preceded in death by her parents, Edward and Helen Gostomski and brothers Donald and Richard Gostomski.  

A Mass of Christian burial is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday Aug. 1, 2019, at St. Joseph Catholic Church, 1619 Washington St., Grafton. Entombment will be at Mt. Olivet Cemetery.  

Visitation will be at the church from 4 p.m. Thursday until the time of service.  

Please visit www.muellerfuneralhome.com to send online condolences to the Mastalish family.

I would like to thank the entire team at The Harbor Campus in Port Washington for their kindness, love and compassion shown not only to mom but also to my family. Mom was truly loved and respected there and it showed. I cannot thank them enough and will miss the residents as well as the staff. You are all rock stars as well as angels and I’m forever grateful to each and every one of you.