Sharon L. La Macchia

Sharon L. La Macchia

Sept. 4, 1943 - Feb. 16, 2023

On the evening of February 16, 2023, with the sun setting behind a sky filled with driving, glittering snow, Sharon "Chickie" La Macchia passed from this life surrounded by the love of her family at home in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

Sharon was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin on September 4, 1943, to her mother, Vera (nee Panyan), and her father, Andrew Juga, who would be killed 18 months later in the European theater of World War II, before Sharon would ever have a chance to know him. Eventually, her mother got remarried to a wonderful man named Oscar "Red" Haubrich, who would love her like his own. Together, Vera and Red raised Chickie, her older brother, Larry Juga and her younger brother Gary Haubrich in their modest two-story home on 20th Avenue in Kenosha.

If you were to ask Chickie, though, she would tell you that her life truly began on March 3, 1961, when she met the love of her life, Bill La Macchia, at a party he almost didn't attend. She was there with her girlfriends. He was there by chance. At the last minute his shift at the American Motors factory was canceled, freeing him up to go. There she was, standing up on a landing, a vision in blue, when this young man in work clothes had his attention directed her way by a friend. He'd seen her once before at The Chocolate Shop, but this was something different. This was love at first sight.

Three years later, on May 9, 1964, Sharon and Bill would be married at the St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Kenosha. Eight hundred people were in attendance to witness this love affair blossom into a life together. One that would include three children: Jill (Andy), Bill Jr., and Jennifer (Nils); three grandchildren: Grace, Charlotte, and Will. A move to Milwaukee, then another to Cedarburg, and the growth of The Mark Travel Corporation, which they would build and shape together, side by side, for more than forty years.

Love radiated from Sharon and Bill with a kind of life-affirming force. Their equal partnership, their mutual respect and admiration, their unshakable bond, their steadfast reliance on one another were the bedrocks of a marriage that was an example for everyone who witnessed it and the gold standard for anyone who wants to know what life can be like when you've found "the one."

To see Sharon out in the world was to witness style and elegance, dignity and grace, personified. Her hazel eyes shimmered. Her wide, warm smile invited you close, and her kind words kept you there. Holding her soft hands left fingerprints on your memory. Her cologne lingered on your clothes like her hugs fused into your heart.

But to know Chickie, was to know a woman who the English language lacks the words to sufficiently describe. She was the whole world. She was life. She was love. She was kindness and compassion. She was joy and generosity. She was warmth and light. She was a wife, a partner, a mother, a sister, an aunt, a grandmother, a friend. She was a mentor and a confidante. She was your first investor and your best customer. She was a shoulder to cry on, an ear to bend, and a brain to pick. She was an angel of positivity who didn't just look on the bright side, she built a full life and a beautiful family there with Bill by her side for nearly 59 years.

Chickie gave 100% of herself to each of these roles, at all times, to everyone in her life, however briefly you may have entered it. Family, friend, acquaintance, employee, cashier, painter, server, UPS driver-it didn't matter. She did nothing halfway. She made everyone feel special. She loved completely. She cared deeply. She listened intently. She was your biggest fan and your most loyal supporter. She wanted nothing but the best for you. Your happiness was her happiness. Your comfort was her comfort. Your success was her success.

Like a peerless diamond, Chickie was a woman of flawless character and clear beauty, with a colorful personality as vivid as it was multi-faceted. She loved fashion and design, architecture, and antiques, reading and art. She loved Hallmark movies and apple turnovers, but "just a taste", she'd tell you. She loved watching her granddaughters dance and her grandson play with trucks. She loved custom stationery, seasonal napkins, and sending holiday and birthday cards in envelopes covered in stickers. Most of all, she loved flowers and working in the garden. In the spring and summer months, she and Bill spent every weekend outside, planting and feeding, watering and weeding, for hours at a time. She tended her garden like she tended to her family with tremendous care and boundless love.

Perhaps her most endearing and enduring quality, Chickie had an unmatched ability to ask amazing questions. The kind born of genuine curiosity, that would catch you off guard, confuse you for a minute, and then stick with you for years, if not the rest of your life. What's your favorite word? Do you have a favorite sound? What's the last book you read? How did you learn to do that? Her questions were always deceptively simple, but they had a way of cutting through the clutter of everyday life and getting to the heart of things. They were Chickie's way of asking you what you were thinking about, what's on your mind, how are you feeling, what's bothering you, what's most important to you, what are you forgetting, what do you need to remember? She asked not for her own sake, but for yours.

In her final few weeks, Chickie had one last simple question that none of us could answer: why was this happening? At the end of a courageous five-year fight against ovarian cancer, she wanted to know what we all thought about the most unknowable question of them all. Or at least she wanted us to think about it. This time she was asking for her sake and for ours. Before she left us, she needed to know that we would be okay when she was gone, and she knew that finding our way to our own individual answers to that question might help us get there eventually.

Thinking about everyone else first, putting them ahead of herself. That was Chickie, to the very end. It has often been said that, with time, people tend to forget the words you say, and the things you do, but they never forget how you make them feel. History remembers the rare few who possess the gift for making us all feel special, for making us feel seen and heard, needed and loved. Because they are the living saints. The angels on earth. They truly do the Lord's work. They are the best of us.

Sharon "Chickie" La Macchia was the best of the best of us. She will never be forgotten.

To honor Sharon and to celebrate a full life well-lived, Visitation and a Mass of Christian Burial will take place at St. Francis Borgia Catholic Parish-North, 1375 Covered Bridge Rd., Cedarburg, Wisconsin on Monday, February 27, 2023. Visitation begins at 12:30 p.m., followed by Mass at 3:30 p.m. Sharon will be laid to rest at St. Francis Borgia Parish Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, the family humbly requests you consider making a donation to any one of the organizations closest to Chickie's heart: The Sharon L. La Macchia Innovation Fund at the Medical College of Wisconsin Attn: Office of Development, 8701 Watertown Plank Road, Milwaukee, WI 53226.

Memorial gifts may also be made online at www.mcw.edu/givingPenfield Children's Center (https://penfieldchildren.org/donate/)

St. Ann Center for Intergenerational Care (https://stanncenter.org/donate/)

Betty Brinn Children's Museum (https://bbcmkids.donation.veevartapp.com/donation/view/home/)

The Eernisse Funeral Home – Cedarburg is honored to serve the family. Online condolences may be left at www.eernissefuneralhome.com.