Marilyn S. Beazer

Marilyn Elma Smith was born on July 11, 1929, in Manhattan. She was the third of four children, two older sons and one younger daughter, born to Edna de Grasse Smith and Albert Smith. She graduated from Resurrection Catholic Church and School in Harlem, N.Y. She received a high school equivalency diploma and nursing certificate and while taking an elevator to her job in the emergency room at Sydenham Hospital in Harlem, she met William D. Beazer, a New York City police officer also assigned to the ER. They married on April 16, 1955, and moved to Queens, N.Y.

Marilyn loved children. She had four of her own and in the early years of her marriage, her neighbors would connect her to children who needed a safe place to stay, including a teenage girl from Puerto Rico who lived with the family for nine months. She raised two orphaned foster boys from infancy to first grade, when childless couples permanently adopted them. The agency social worker remarked that their physical and emotional challenges had been healed by Marilyn’s care. Marilyn delighted in taking her children to parks, museums, and in playing and singing with them. She loved to cook and bake for family, and her beef patties and banana nut bread were favorites of her relatives and friends.

A lifelong member of the Secular Franciscan Order, she lived her life following the Rule and Life of Third Order Franciscans, which says in part: “Blessed are they who love another who is sick and seemingly useless, as much as when that brother or sister is well and of service.” She dedicated her working life to giving comfort and healing to people facing trauma, illness, injury, old age, and end of life at Sydenham, Queens General Hospital, Upper Manhattan Medical Group, the Bronx VA Hospital, and Mary Manning Walsh Nursing Home in Manhattan. When the family moved to the Bronx, she served on the parish council and Home School Association of the parochial school her children attended. She taught adults to read English as a literacy volunteer.

After she retired, Marilyn moved to a senior apartment complex in Croton-on-Hudson, where she loved watching the sunsets and taking long walks near the Hudson River. She began drawing, took tai chi for exercise, made rosaries by hand, volunteered at the local board of elections, and worked at the White Elephant. Later at Sky View nursing home, she served on the resident council, took up painting watercolors, sang in the glee club, and wrote articles and haiku for the literary magazine. She loved activities with local school children and having friends and was a compassionate and calming presence sometimes invited to the bedside of sick friends.

Marilyn’s husband died in 1977 and her daughter Camille died in 1992. She is survived by her son David and his wife, Jackie Bonesi, her son William, her daughter Catherine, and her grandchildren Cheyenne and Dylan MacDonald.

A funeral Mass for Marilyn will be held Friday, April 8, 2022 at 10:00 AM at Holy Name of Mary Church, 114 Grand Street, Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y. Following the funeral mass will be a burial at Mt. Holiness Cemetery, 1 Brown Avenue, Butler, N.J. 07405.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Holy Name of Mary Church: www.holynameofmary.churchgiving.com

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.efcarterfuneralhome.com for the Beazer family.