Carol K. Wiffler

A devoted wife and dedicated and loving mother, grandmother and great grandmother, Carol was known and loved by people throughout Yonkers and beyond.

Carol was born in Yonkers in 1939 to Ann and Tommy Keon. Carol spent her childhood in Yonkers in Holy Rosary parish and many summers with her parents and relatives upstate in the Irish Alps. Carol and her parents relocated around Yonkers for various reasons, including the banshees, before settling on Ravine Avenue, right on the river, and across the street from Jerry Wiffler. She quickly broke his “no girls allowed in the yard” rule. Meeting when they were five years old, Carol and Jerry would go on to be together for over 70 years.

Carol went to Sacred Heart High School and got a job working in Scarsdale in an insurance office. She also got a two tone 1954 Chevy Bel Air convertible that her father would wash every weekend.

Carol married Jerry in 1962 and soon had Jerry and Michele. They moved to Homefield and set up camp in St Anthony’s and had Tommy and Danny. They were blessed with dogs and a big yard to play in with lilacs and a dogwood tree, and a great neighborhood where they all made friends.

Carol threw herself into helping the community, working as a poll worker and becoming an election supervisor. She volunteered at countless events, from cooking thousands of hotdogs at St. Anthony’s, to leading the Cub Scout pack, to helping run the Homefield Association.

But Carol’s biggest, hardest and most important job was mother. Driving to grade schools, high schools, basketball games, track meets, Scout trips, kids’ jobs, emergency rooms, there was never a moment when the family did not feel loved and cared for. And somehow, throughout the 70s and 80s and on, Carol and Jerry made sure four kids were kept on the straight and narrow.

After the children had moved out and Jerry had retired, Carol took up bowling and a bit of traveling with her friends, and developed an uncanny luck with Lotto and scratchoffs. Along with her unusual shamrock luck she had a definite outsized confidence. One night, after seeing she won a good chunk of change on Lotto, she went over to the gas station to collect her money, but they did not have enough money to pay her. “I’m not leaving without my money,” she told the various assembled gas station workers, who then proceeded to rifle through the drawers and their pockets and their own cars to come up with her winnings.

In a house full of wiseguys, Carol always held her own with a razor sharp sense of humor and was never outmatched. She was quick to remind the family of all the wives’ tales passed down from her mother. We are not sure why, but, for the love of God, don’t put new shoes on a table or share a kitchen towel.

In her later years, when many people would be slowing down, Carol got to go on many adventures, from boating in Florida to cruising to the Bahamas to camping in the Sequoias and with the grizzly bears out West.

In the last few years, when Jerry got sick, Carol did everything in her power to take care of him. And when Jerry died, Carol visited his grave every day.

Carol will be remembered for her quick, warm smile, her endless conversations over cups of tea, and the unshakeable feeling that, if she knew you, you were in her heart and in her prayers.

Carol is survived by Jerry III, his wife Colleen; Michele, Tommy, his wife Kathy; Danny and his wife Tracy; and grandchildren Kate, Tommy and his wife Madison, Bridget and her husband Brad, Tim, Colin and his wife Annie, Kaleigh, Caroline, Jerry, Caitlin, Jane, Martin and great granddaughter Emma.

Donations may be made in memory of Carol Wiffler to:

St. Anthony’s Church, 10 Squire Ave., Yonkers, N.Y. 10703.

https://stanthony-yonkers.churchgiving.com/

Visiting hours will be at Whalen & Ball Funeral Home, 168 Park Ave., Yonkers, N.Y. 10703 on Tuesday May 19th from 4-8pm. Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated in St. Anthony’s Church, 10 Squire Ave., Yonkers, N.Y. 10703 on Wednesday May 20th at 10am. Interment will follow at St. Joseph Cemetery, 209 Truman Ave., Yonkers, N.Y. 10703.