Mary Anne Mazanec (1952-2008)

Mary Anne Was a Devoted and Beloved Mother, Wife, Sister, Daughter and Aunt as well as an Honored Educator and Community Leader

To see the retrospective video of Mary Anne’s life, scroll down to the bottom of the page.

On August 6, 2008, Mary Anne Mazanec (nee Scott) of Cinnaminson, NJ, passed away peacefully at home. She was 56 years of age. Mary Anne was the loving wife of Thomas Mazanec, devoted mother of Michael and Theresa, beloved daughter of John and Joan Scott of Delran, and a very special sister to Joan Johnson (Marshall), John (Linda), Ellen Jones (Donald), William (Crystal) and Jennifer Bonafiglia (Philip). She also leaves behind many cherished nieces and nephews.
Mary Anne graduated from Glassboro State College (Rowan University) in 1974 and worked as a special education teacher in Pemberton. After taking some time off to start a family, she returned to work as a Kindergarten teacher at St. Charles Borromeo in Cinnaminson. During this time, Mary Anne brought her students to Cinnaminson Manor to visit the elderly. She grew quite fond of several of the residents there and returned frequently to spend time with them. After leaving her teachin position at St. Charles, Mary Anne began working as a specialist in the field of assistive technology helping impaired children learn to use computers and other devices as a help in communicating and learning. She ultimately joined the NJ State Department of Human Services in August 2004.

In May of this year, Mary Anne was honored with an “Exceptional Service Award” at the New Jersey State Public Service Awards Ceremony. They, too, recognized how special she was. Here is what they said about her:

Mary Anne Mazanec’s selfless devotion to the field of Assistive Technology and her students is passionate. During her 30-year career in education, she has consistently demonstrated an unwavering commitment toward serving people with disabilities, first as a teacher and currently as an assistive technology specialist with the Office of Education. As Mary Anne is very well versed in assistive technology devices and is a highly competent evaluator, she most often is able to determine a solution that will best meet a students’ needs and skills. She easily bridges the gaps between technological support, child study team services, program support units, teachers, students and parents. It is her resolve and ultimate dedication that makes Mary Anne Mazanec stand out among the rest.

Mary Anne was also honored by the ALS Association’s Philadelphia Chapter as their 1995 Volunteer of the Year. This was quite unique given the fact that she was not an official volunteer of this organization. She was simply being Mary Anne.

The driving force behind everything that Mary Anne did was her faith in Jesus Christ. She embraced and lived her Christian faith with a steadfast commitment and was an active member in her church, Maranatha Christian Fellowship of Moorestown, NJ. She had a beautiful voice and used this gift to glorify God on the worship team and in the choir. In addition, she participated in children’s ministry. To no one’s surprise (other than hers) she was named “Outstanding Sunday School Teacher of the Year” by Children’s Ministry Magazine. The children at Maranatha loved “Miss Mary Anne.” Everyone did.

Mary Anne profoundly touched many lives with her genuine expressions of kindness and compassion. Ever vigilant, Mary Anne made lived a lifestyle of visiting the sick, preparing meals and just being a friend to those who needed one. She would give of herself without a moment’s hesitation. Even more amazing is that she continued her lifestyle of serving others even while she was battling ovarian cancer. In her free time, Mary Anne enjoyed listening to contemporary Christian music, attending concerts on occasion, crocheting, being with her family and taking photos with her digital camera, but her true passion was serving the needs of others.

At Mary Anne’s request, charitable donations can be made payable to “Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania” and sent to: Abramson Cancer Center, Development Office, 3535 Market St. Suite 750, Philadelphia, PA 19104, Attn: Sally Schaeffer. Credit and contributions can also be made by calling 215-573-4028. Please specify that the donation is in memory of Mary Anne Mazanec to ensure that it is directed for ovarian cancer research.

A celebration of Mary Anne’s life was held at her church, Maranatha Christian Fellowship of Moorestown, NJ, on Saturday, August 9, 2008 at 11:00 am.

Below is the eulogy that Mary Anne’s brother, William, shared at her memorial service.

On behalf of my family, I would like to thank everyone for all of the expressions of comfort and support you’ve given us over the past two weeks. Thanks also for being here with us today as we remember and celebrate Mary Anne’s life together. Your presence here is a testimony to the many lives Mary Anne has touched.
It’s an honor for me to talk about my sister, yet there’s no way for me to capture with words all that Mary Anne meant to me or to the members of our family. I’m sure I speak for my other sisters and brother and Tom’s family as well when I say that Mary Anne was not only a wonderful sister, she was a dear friend. Growing up, she became something of a mentor to me. Someone I could talk to about anything. I can recall numerous times in my life when I was facing an important decision and needed some direction and Mary Anne was often the person I that I went to.
Our family was different from most in that there was a 20 year span between the first born, Mary Anne and the last born, Jennie. I happened to be born the night that Mary Anne graduated from eighth grade. My first real memories of her are from the time when she was in college. As an education major she would sometimes use me as a guinea pig when she was taking a child psychology course. I also remember her bringing this Tom guy home from college. I didn’t know what to make of him at first, but he turned out to be okay.
When I look back at family photos, I realize there was a lot that I missed out on being number five. The first four, Mary Anne, Joan, John and Ellen were all close in age and seemed to have a lot of good times together. Mom and Dad were younger and had more energy and enthusiasm. Jennie and I may have gone to Disney World for a vacation, but as Dad likes to point out, the first four got to see the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania.
I wasn’t around then, but from the sounds of things, Mary Anne was always the responsible one who did the right thing. At Christmastime, I’m told Mary Anne, Joan, John and Ellen would go shopping at Grants 5 & 10 store in Riverside. When they got home they would take turns locking one person at a time out of the room so they could show the other siblings the gift they had gotten for that person. The only catch was they had to keep it secret. Mary Anne apparently was the only one who actually kept her lips sealed.
As the oldest child, she set the bar high for the rest of us. She was friendly, had good manners and did well in school. Mom and Dad may not have said, “Why can’t you be more like Mary Anne?” But we could pretty much tell that’s what they were thinking. For example, Mom was telling me the other day that at Mary Anne’s high school graduation party, some of her friends were actually playing chess and listening to classical music. To top it off, Mary Anne invited a couple of her teachers to come to the party. Mom didn’t go into detail about Joan’s and Ellen’s graduation parties, but I got the impression they were not like Mary Anne’s party.
Mary Anne always had a very nurturing way about her. I’m told as a child she loved to play school, and since she was the oldest, she always got to be the teacher. The other three must have been good students because Mary Anne decided to take up teaching as a career. The few times Mom and Dad went away alone on vacation, Mary Anne could always be counted on to watch Jennie and me. Those were often teaching times for me. She taught us how to do a lot more chores than we normally did. One of the most important things she has taught me has been the value of hard work. Anything Mary Anne did she gave it her all.
In our adult lives, Mary Anne was important to our family in so many ways. She was the first person I thought of to travel with me to Romania when Crystal and I adopted Mihaela. And she has maintained a close bond with Mihaela over the years. In our larger family, Mary Anne was the one keeping in touch with the other siblings, staying abreast of how everyone was doing, and she was the one who usually got the ball rolling when it came to organizing family functions. Mary Anne loved when the family was all together. You could just see it on her face. She and Tom hosted many family gatherings over the years. And with the advent of the digital camera, Mary Anne was intent on capturing every moment. She must have had a big flash card in that camera because she took a lot of pictures. Mary Anne also had an amazing record for remembering birthdays anniversaries and other special occasions. If she could, she would stop over for a visit. If she couldn’t visit, she would call on the phone and always there would be a card with a note written inside. She was an antidote for living in an impersonal world.
Mary Anne set her priorities in life and what mattered to her were people. Of course, the most important people in Mary Anne’s life were Tom, Michael and Theresa. Mary Anne and Tom had a deep love for each other that was obvious to anyone around them. Tomorrow would have marked their 34th wedding anniversary. Together Mary Anne and Tom raised two wonderful children, Michael and Theresa who lovingly cared for her throughout her illness, and especially in these past two weeks. I’m also proud of how my siblings Joan, Jennie, Ellen and John were there at her side in her time of need.
Mary Anne was such a “people person.” She loved people. I still don’t know how she kept in touch with everyone. Somehow she maintained close contact with a multitude of friends over the years including friends from her childhood. There’s a saying that if you want to know something about a person, take a look at who his friends are. In Mary Anne’s case those words couldn’t be more true. She had some friendships that were quite unique and that reveal for us the kind of person she was. For people like John Apollo, Lowell Bostwick and Dale O’Reilly, Mary Anne must have seemed like an angel.
If you’ve talked to Mary Anne in the past 15 years you’ve probably heard her share about her friend Lowell. Lowell, or “Lowie” as Mary Anne referred to him, was a few years younger than her and had suffered with ALS or Lou Gherig’s Disease for most of his life. Not only had the disease robbed him of his mobility, but he was unable to talk or feed himself. With the exception of his parents and the visiting nurses who helped him, Lowell was isolated in his own home with little social contact. Mary Anne was introduced to “Lowie” through another friend who was aware of his situation. Mary Anne began corresponding with Lowell via email and soon began visiting him in his home. Over the next ten or so years, Mary Anne came to think of Lowell as one of her closest friends, emailing him daily and making the two hour drive to visit him whenever possible. Eventually, Lowie’s condition got to the point where he couldn’t even use his computer, but that didn’t stop Mary Anne. She would hold a letter board up for him and follow his eye movements to spell the words he couldn’t speak. Lowell passed away two years ago, but Mary Anne’s friendship brought a measure of warmth and hope that made all the difference.
It seemed Mary Anne specialized in finding the people who most needed a friend. In 1992 Mary Anne befriended John Apollo, a young man in his late twenties also battling ALS. He too was unable to walk, unable to write, unable to talk or take care of himself and was living at the Cinnaminson nursing home. Through her visits with John, she learned that he was originally from the St. Louis area and was a baseball fan. That was all Mary Anne needed. She got on the phone with the Phillies front office and made arrangements to take John Apollo to see his favorite team play the Phillies. Not only that, Mary Anne arranged for us (Michael was with us) to go down on the field during warm-ups and meet the players. The St. Louis team presented John with an autographed bat and several of the players came over to shake his hand. It was a moment I’ll never forget, and it all happened because of Mary Anne. Those are just two people. There are dozens more and probably more I don’t know about. It was part of her lifetstyle. From conversations I’ve had with her, I know that Mary Anne didn’t spend time patting herself on the back. She just loved caring for people and considered herself blessed for the people she knew. Even as she was fighting cancer, Mary Anne continued to do what made her happy: serving the needs of others. In this sense, I think that Mary Anne beat cancer, not the way we would have liked for her to beat it (none of us have that kind of control over our lives), but she beat it because never gave in to feeling sorry for herself. She never let it stop her from living her life to the fullest. Some may wonder what made Mary Anne so different. Was she just a very nice person? Nice doesn’t begin to cover it. The truth is she showed kindness and compassion to people on a level that is rarely seen in this world. If you’ve spent any time with Mary Anne, then you know the answer. Mary Anne not only loved people, she had a deep love for God and that was the foundation for everything she did. Mary Anne had encountered the unconditional love of Jesus Christ that totally transformed her. Of all her friends and relationships, Jesus was Mary Anne’s closest friend and the One who gave her life focus and meaning. She did not serve others in order to gain God’s acceptance, she lived the way she did because she had already received God’s acceptance in Christ.
I know too that this community of believers was very special to Mary Anne. You were her brothers and sisters as well. So I would like to thank all of you at Maranatha and Pastor George for the love you have shown her over the years and especially during her times of trial. For those whose hope is Christ, death is not the end.

In his letter to the Colossian church, Paul wrote:

“For you already died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, they you also will appear with Him in glory.”

Mary Anne’s life was a life hidden with Christ in God. Because of this, I look forward to the day when I will see her again. That day when Christ is revealed in glory. This past Monday I went to spend some time with Mary Anne in the afternoon. I had already had my important visit with her where I told her how much she has meant to me, so anytime someone came who hadn’t visited with her yet, I would step out. By the time her visits were over, she was even more weak and feeling extremely tired. With her eyes closed, she whispered to me, “Did you have enough time with me?” “No,” I said, “I can never get enough time with you. I want more. I’m coming to see you again tomorrow.” In Christ I know there will be a tomorrow. In a few minutes, you’re going to see a slideshow that Mary Anne had asked me to make for her back in April when she received news that the cancer had spread to her liver. The photographs give us an overview of Mary Anne’s life and how she lived it to the fullest. What you’ll see is someone who was much loved and who loved much. Mary Anne selected the music herself. What I want you to know is that the sunset in the last frame is the sunset I saw on Wednesday. I had just been with Mary Anne several hours. My parents and sisters had all been there and knew that she was in her final hours here on earth. On the way home, something told me to just pull over and take a moment to be still. As I sat there gazing at the sunset, I sensed God’s peace pouring over me. “Don’t be troubled. Trust me. Mary Anne is in my care.” A minute later when Tom called to inform me of Mary Anne’s passing. Somehow God had already spoken to my heart telling me that she was home. “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Mary Anne’s daughter, Theresa, shared her thoughts about her mother at the memorial service.

I wasn’t sure if I would actually be standing in front of you all today for several reasons. My Dad and Mike and I had talked recently spoke about whether or not we would be able to talk about Mom today and we had come to a decision that it just might be too hard. I wondered if I would be able to tell you all anything about this wonderful woman that you didn’t already know and I struggled with speaking before a group older than 6 for a change.
I decided, however, that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t get to share about the person that has had the most impact on my life. I also came to the conclusion that, as her daughter, I might be able to share something a little bit different about my mom than others would. Most importantly, I knew that unlike my students, I might actually have all of your attention.
As you all know, my Mom was a very special person. She made everyone she met feel like a life-long friend, and as you can guess…she meant the world to me and my brother. I always felt so lucky to have two parents that loved each other like they did. I can still remember my parents in the kitchen, giving each other a kiss and asking me “Does this embarrass you?” Little did they know, it never did. Secretly, I reveled in the fact that my parents loved each other after 34 years, with the same excitement that they did when they were 20. My grandparents echoed the same sentiment when they told me recently that they had always feared my parents would have starved since they always remembered them holding hands at the dinner table.
When my mom came home from the hospital a few weeks ago my Dad had found a small piece of paper with the following written on it: “Tom, 11:00- First day of classes. C-1…Me”. This was a note from a friend, Peggi (later my godmother), whom he had met that year at Glassboro State College and had befriended in what he called “a geeky lab band”. Peggi wrote this note to my Dad at the end of their freshman year after they had decided to meet up again when the summer had ended and sophomore year began. My Dad kept that note and went to that room on the first day of classes and said he was surprised to find that Peggi had held up her end of the bargain. You might be asking yourself what this note has to do with my Mom. Well, shortly after they reconnected, Peggi invited my Dad over to her dorm and introduced him to her beautiful roommate, Mary Anne. “This is the note that started it all,” my Dad told me. No it was not love at first site (Mom always held a grudge that Dad refused her offer of chocolate ice cream in the dorm room), but they grew to know each other, eventually date and over time fall in love.
I’ve been saying over and over lately that this note was the reason that we are all here today, but I’ve recently realized that it wasn’t the note. Although we could spend a lot of time thinking about the what-ifs and how different our lives would be if there never was a note but, it was always in God’s plan that my Mom and Dad would find each other. They were meant to be together for so many reasons that this note only did what God wanted it to do: bring Mary Anne and Tom together.
As I grow older, I value so much more the example that she and my Dad have given my brother and me on how to love. It doesn’t always come easily and there is a lot of sacrifice involved, but when you enter into it unselfishly, like she did, you can find yourself with something amazing. My Mom loved my Dad, my brother, and myself this way. She also showed that love to all of you. Never asking of us, but always looking for what she could do to make us happier.
You all have told me so many stories of what she has done and the ways she has loved you through these years and I must admit that I don’t think I understood it until now. At times I would be angry about how much she gave of herself and how little she asked for in return but little did I know that all of these relationships were truly what made her happy; loving those around her more than herself.
I can only hope to follow in her example and enter into all of my relationships with the same kindness and compassion she did. We always joked together as a family that I had to “beat her records” in school and in work (since she had been known to pull out her college transcripts from time to time to compare) but I have a better record to beat now. Tomorrow would be my parent’s 34th wedding anniversary. I know that is one record she would be happy to let me have.

This is the audio/visual retrospective that was prepared by Mary Anne’s brother, William, and shown at her memorial service at Maranatha Christian Fellowship on Saturday, August 9, 2008. Mary Anne selected the music by Marty Goetz, one of her favorite Christian artists. Due to issues of length, the video has been split into two parts.

Part 1: “Teach Us to Number Our Days”

Part 2: “Hope of Glory”