Lucille I. Kazmer

Lucille Ida Kazmer, née Domin, passed away at the age of 92 on Friday, July 7, 2023. She was the youngest and last surviving child of Jacob and Zuzanna Domin, who raised a family of eight children in Hamtramck, Michigan, the Polish enclave in Detroit. Her siblings were Leocadia, Alexandra, Witold, Lucian, Melania, Henrietta, and Alexander.

During the difficult depression years, the big family survived by faith and everyone doing what they could to keep bread on the table. Finally, in the fall of 1935, her mother found a job as a cleaner at the General Motors Building, which required her to convince the nuns at St. Stanislaus School to allow Lucille, just four years old, to accompany her brother Alex "as long as she was very quiet." The teachers soon discovered Lucille was doing the lessons along with the older children, and they placed her directly into the first grade. She graduated from Hamtramck High School at age sixteen. Her yearbook quote, "Out of Vogue," fit with her long raven black hair and love of fashion. She then spent a year connecting people and the information they needed as a Bell Telephone operator, which may explain her lifelong love of being helpful to all and solving mysteries. She attended Wayne State University until she married Thaddeus Kazmer in 1950. They had three daughters: Lucy, Thadine and Carol.

Lucille was cheerful and talkative, making friends everywhere she went. Although she never travelled much, she loved to strike up a conversation with people from other parts of the world and inquire about their holidays and cuisine. She was a Girl Scout leader throughout her daughters' childhood and enjoyed taking her troop to Camp Metamora because she loved being in nature. She and Teddy held the shared dream of living in the country. Following his retirement from General Motors and her setting aside her Avon business, they moved to a forty-acre farm outside of the village of Stanwood, near Big Rapids, Michigan. They planted hundreds of trees there, kept an organic garden and enjoyed birdwatching.

Last autumn, she relocated to the Detroit area to be nearer her family. She is survived by her daughter, Thadine Kazmer, and son-in-law, Alan Schepka, who reside in Warren, Michigan. Her daughter Carol Liffman lives with her husband Paul in Houston, Texas. Carol's daughter Maya and her husband Christopher Kuhman blessed Lucille with two beautiful great-grandsons, Charlie and Cliff, and they live in Arlington, Virginia. Her husband, Thaddeus, and her oldest daughter, Lucy, preceded her in death.

Lucille was a devoted Catholic, always prayerful and found much joy in saying the rosary. A funeral service will be held at her church in Big Rapids in early August.

If you wish to remember Lucille, please consider a donation to an organization that plants trees such as the Arbor Day Foundation or A Living Tribute.