Sandra Tallon

Sandra, Sandi, Grandi, Aunt Sasa, Sonj - gone too soon at age 72 on January 31, 2018.

Known to her extended casino family as “Sandi with an I,” she was born in Philadelphia, PA (home of the Super Bowl LII Champions) before she crossed the Delaware River as a teenager and lived most of her adult life in the Garden State. Her Jersey home highlighted her passion for gardens, pets, and parties. Birds, pups, cats, and a few hundred pond fish greeted an equally interesting guest list at her personal backyard “Jersey Shore.” Despite rumors to the contrary, she actually did have tons of sand delivered to create a beach for her pool and surrounded that oceanfront with botanicals and fish of every variety.

Regular road-trips to her beloved Deep Creek Lake in Western MD anchored her passion for the water and fishing, eventually leading to her penultimate relocation to Annapolis, MD and the Chesapeake Bay. She spent most of her professional life in the casino “biz” where she hosted players on trips around the world. She was working full-time, enjoying dinners out, and hosting regular overseas cruises until her diagnosis of a hyper-rare malignancy a few months ago.

Her true passions were family, fishing, and feeding others. She loved to out-fish everyone else on the boat (and usually did!) The bigger the fish and the harder the fight, the happier she was – her personal best 50” rockfish and 40” pike were treasured catches. If you touched her rod on the boat, you risked swimming with the fishes. After each fishing trip, you could always find her cooking the daily catch while sharing stories with family and friends about her capacity to coax the largest fish, bait her own hook, fight her own fish, and win the daily prize pool.

Although nothing made her happier than a great day on the water, she may have been equally passionate about shopping and making pasta. She leaves behind more than 200 pairs of shoes, 80 hats, and 40 jars of canned tomatoes for her amazing meatballs and gravy.

She is preceded in death by her parents Anthony & Angelina (Piraino) Geraci and her sister JoAnn C. Prelle (Al). Her beautiful life will forever be remembered and missed by her three children. There is no doubt it was like herding cats to manage those three, but she loved them equally and each in their own way. They will forever remember her as the woman who brought them into this world and gave them the opportunity to live, love, and laugh – as she did every day. Her oldest child is Paul Peditto (Stephanie) of Annapolis, MD; middle son is Darren Peditto of Egg Harbor Twp., NJ; and her youngest and only daughter is Tonilyn Peditto (Joseph Ziccardi Jr) of Hammonton, NJ.

She was also the most loved Grandi to Zackary McFerren of Voorhees, NJ; Nicholas Peditto of Annapolis, MD; and Kati Peditto (Eric May) of Geneva, NY – and Aunt Sasa’s real favorite (just ask her) Laura Prelle of Marlton, NJ.

In the end, her surgical team at Johns Hopkins considered her harrowing experience “nothing short of superhuman.” She spent her final weeks reminding us to fight the good fight, love and live genuinely, and when it’s time to leave, go without regret and at peace. No doubt her final relocation was a peaceful trip to paradise where she will bring us calm seas, big fish, excessive quantities of food, full shopping bags, and memories of a woman who lived a wonderful life and was blessed with a remarkable heart and soul.

To truly honor someone so special and passionate, the family is making plans for a spring celebration in Annapolis on the Chesapeake Bay, complete with fishing, steamed crabs and a loving gathering of her friends and family. Details will follow in the future.

In the meantime, donations in her name can be made to the following organizations:

The Ulman Cancer Fund – a campaign to build housing to support cancer patients and their families seeking treatment at Johns Hopkins. http://ulmanfund.org/theucfhouse/support-the-campaign/

For her fishing friends, donations are also welcome at one of her favorite local charities – a small non-profit volunteer corps dedicated to taking kids and their families fishing who would not otherwise have that opportunity. Wish-A-Fish is based in Annapolis, MD and their annual event takes place just a few minutes from Sandi’s Annapolis home. http://www.wish-a-fish.org/index.html