Colette A. Formanek

Beloved wife of 53 years to the late Leonard F. Formanek. Born in 1929 in Philadelphia to the late Collette A. (Rowan) and William S. Gannon and raised during the Great Depression in the Cramer Hill section of Camden. Her father, an Army Sergeant in WWI and purple heart recipient, died at a young age, leaving her mother to raise six children as a single parent. Colette assumed the household and childcare responsibilities while her two older siblings left high school to work fulltime to sustain the family. She was the first child in her family to earn a high school diploma from Camden Catholic High School in 1947. Colette worked as a long-distance operator for Bell Telephone in the Bourse Building in Philadelphia. After her marriage in 1950, Colette raised her nine children over the span of four decades in Paulsboro, East Camden and Merchantville.

Colette is predeceased by two brothers, William and Henry Gannon, two sisters, Mary Orangers and Helen Simpson, and a brother-in law, Kenneth Orangers.

She is survived by her nine children, Colette (David) New of Tabernacle; Barbara (Charles Stevenson) Formanek of Williamsburg, VA; Judith (Theodore) Pettek of Toms River; Leonard (Sharon) of Charlotte, NC; Eileen (Charles) Gorman of Camden; Joseph (Cynthia) Formanek of Coopersburg, PA; Maria (Thomas) Murt of Hatboro, PA; Lisa (Patrick) Roche of Doylestown, PA; Michele (Stephen) Pedrani of Neshanic Station, and a legacy of 20 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren.

She is also survived by her sister, Josephine Bak, two sisters-in-law, Rita and Ruth Gannon, two brothers-in-law, Walter Bak and James Simpson, and many cousins, nieces and nephews.

Her devotion to her Catholic faith, and especially to the Blessed Mother, sustained her throughout her life. A proponent of Catholic education, Colette sent her nine children to attend St. Joseph Pro-Cathedral School in East Camden, then later to St. Peter School in Merchantville, and Camden Catholic High School in Cherry Hill. She was most recently a parishioner of Saint Joseph the Worker Parish, Saint Vincent Pallotti Church in Haddon Township.

Family and friends are invited to attend a Memorial Visitation, Monday September 21,2020, 9:30-10:30am at BLAKE-DOYLE Funeral Home, 226 W. Collings Ave, Collingswood, NJ. A Memorial Mass will take place at 11:00am in Saint Joseph the Worker Parish, Saint Vincent Pallotti Church, Haddon Township, NJ. Please leave your remembrances of Colette on BLAKE-DOYLE.com. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Colette's honor to: Saint Joseph the Worker Parish, Saint Vincent Pallotti Church, 901 Hopkins Rd A, Haddonfield, NJ 08033.