Catherine Mary Baril

The house where Catherine Mary (Fend) Baril grew up stood atop a steep hill. Only those who grew up in a copper mining community, like Hancock, Michigan could appreciate the hill that she was climbing multiple times a day: to school, and back for lunch, to school, and back to meet her mom, to the store where her mom would send her, and back home. It was that house and that hill where many of her stories began, especially the ones she enjoyed telling as often as others would listen. Most would involve her three brothers, Ettinger (deceased), William (deceased), John (deceased) and sister Patricia (deceased). Like the time that she went sledding down the hill because John dared her – after her mother told her not to – and ending up with a leg gashed to the bone; or the stories about the sand, rocks and other items that she and John would dump down the hole in her backyard that never seemed to hit bottom (of course, they lived atop an old mine). Those trips down those hills had far more meaning later in life for the two sons, 12 grandchildren and19 great-grandchildren she leaves behind. For near the bottom of the hill, on the way to school, on the way to the grocers and on the way to her future, lived the boy who would one day become the man she would marry: Clement Baril (deceased). It would be unreal to say that she lived happily ever after. But, together, the two of them would always find just enough loose change to buy kerosene for the heater and tuition for the catholic schools for her sons. From the time she was a young girl, it would not be uncommon to find her awake late into the night. As a child, she would rock her younger sister so that her mother could get some sleep. As a mother, she would sit with her sons as they came home from school and studied late in the night. The three o’clock hour was no stranger to Catherine. But, on Tuesday, January 26, 2016 – two months from her centennial birthday – in the three o’clock hour, Catherine Baril passed peacefully in the night and found rest. MaMa, as her grand- and great-grandchildren knew her, is coming home to Oak Park, Michigan, where she lived for nearly fifty years, from San Antonio, Texas. She will lay down beside her loving husband of forty-four years, PaPa. They are survived by both sons, James (Rosalie) and Thomas (Emily). She was the loving grandmother of: Mari (Bari) Vasan, Bret Bari, Cheri (Bari) Spain, Barbi (Bari) Dunaway; Matthew S. Baril, Thomas E. Baril, Jr, Mireille M. Baril, Ruth E. (Baril) Rutledge, James S. Baril, Catherine Badowski and Alexander and Christina LaRocca. There are 19 great-granchildren: Sienna and Sebastian Vasan; Isabella and Kellan Spain; Kayla and Shashi Dunaway, Maximus Yoo; Thomas E. Baril III, Hannah, Joseph, Patrick, Andrew, Mary Rose (Deceased), and David Baril; James Thomas Rutledge; Inessa and Declan Baril; Robington Badowski; and Tala Anderson. A Mass of Remembrance will be held by long-time family chaplain Father Chateau at Our Mother of Perpetual Help (Fatima) Catholic Church, Oak Park, MI at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, February 4, 2016 followed by interment at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery next to her beloved husband, Clement. Arrangements by Wm. Sullivan and Son Funeral Home, Royal Oak. Please share a memory at www.sullivanfuneraldirectors.com.

Catherine Mary Baril

March 31, 1916 - January 26, 2016