Mary Elizabeth McClellan

Mary Elizabeth McClellan (27 October 1948 - 21 August 2024), called Lisa, died at Valley Palms Care Center in North Hollywood, California in the early morning of 21 August 2024, on the anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady of Knock, after a prolonged struggle with dementia. She was predeceased by her beloved parents, Robert Edward McClellan and Mary Margaret Billetter of Woodland Hills, CA, and by her older sister, Kathleen Gremer, of Orange, CA. The second oldest of seven children, she is survived by her siblings, Patricia (Thomas) Zung, Eileen (Leo) Sullivan, Robert, Mary (Edward) Konopa and Thomas, and by her three children, daughter Aleksandra ("Olesia") Doran of Corning, NY and son-in-law Andrew, daughter Jadwiga ("Jadzia") Biskupska of Conroe, TX, and son Mietek of New York, NY, and by a large extended family.

A proud Angelina, she was born in Whittier and raised in Woodland Hills, California. A graduate of Louisville High School (1966), she attended Mount St. Mary's University and Los Angeles Pierce College. She ultimately graduated from UCLA in 1971 with a degree in economics and began courses toward an MBA. She worked at Bullock's department stores in and around Los Angeles, wrapping presents each Christmas with elf-like precision. In the 1970s she married, traveled in Europe, and worked for the US embassy in Warsaw, Poland, adventures she remembered fondly for the rest of her life. Back in the US, she relocated to the East Coast, working at Armstrong Tire and SNET in Connecticut. In 1987, she settled in Newark, NY, with her three children, where she was an active parishioner at St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church. In her fifties, she re-trained as a nurse and earned her LPN (2004), then returned to southern California to rejoin her aging parents. She was an avid gardener and connoisseur of lilacs, a semi-professional baker who made triple-layer brownie cakes for her children's birthdays, and a lover of babies, Ronald Reagan, old movies, ballroom dancing, the Rosary, chocolate in all its forms, PG Wodehouse, and eye-rolling puns.

Services will be held on 28 September 2024 at 11am at Holy Cross Mortuary & Cemetery in Culver City, California, where she will be interred. A Rosary will precede the service. Prayers for her immortal soul are requested to her patron St. Jude’s Thaddeus.