Phyllis Kulik

Phyllis (McFarland) Kulik of Auburndale, MA, died at home on November 24, 2024 after a brief time in hospice care. She was-to use her own preferred phrasing-in her 97th year.

Phyllis lived her life in the Boston area, having been born August 25, 1928 as the eldest of three sisters. In 1946 she met Stanley Kulik, a returning enlistee from the US Army's Rainbow Division and also a Boston native. They married and lived in Dorchester, where the Kulik family ran a store near the Yacht Club on Dorchester Bay Basin. A son, Stephen, was born there in 1950 and he was joined in 1956 by another son, David, who arrived shortly before the family settled on Central Street in the Auburndale section of Newton. Phyllis and Stanley enjoyed a busy social life during the time their boys were growing up, becoming active in the West Newton Unitarian Church, agitating for social causes they supported, opening their home to their children's friends, and forming lasting friendships with people from the neighborhood of all ages. Phyllis took an interest in bargain hunting and could recall into her final years when and where she had purchased nearly every item in her home, and the price paid for it. Her children attended Newton North and the Murray Road School, with Phyllis and Stanley nurturing their interests in music, art, and the outdoors.


Phyllis became a grandmother in the 1980s, an identity she reveled in as she frequently visited her two grandchildren in Western Massachusetts and entertained them in Newton. During this period she was widowed by Stanley's unexpected passing. The generosity of her neighbors and the closeness of her family eased that difficult transition. She established herself as a devotee of the breakfast date and the telephone conversation, passing many mornings over coffee and muffins, and many afternoons on the phone with assorted friends and confidantes. Over the decades, Phyllis was a supportive figure and valued ear to countless friends and relations, in particular those of younger generations. Certainly an opinionated woman, endowed with an iron will, her permissiveness and encouragement of individuals to act and think for themselves gave her a balanced character that drew people's admiration.


During the decades that her son Stephen served in the state legislature he was able to spend weeknights at home with Phyllis, who would attend rapturously the biennial swearing-in day at the State House. When her son David and his wife Monica joined her to live on Central Street it enabled Phyllis to age at home there. Together they made trips to the weddings of both of Phyllis' grandchildren and kept the house ready for visits from Phyllis' three great-granddaughters. At age 95 she proudly renewed her driver's license, a token of her spirit of independence.


From 1972 until 2023 her family expanded with the arrival of daughters-in-law Suzanne and Monica, grandchildren Sam and Liz, their spouses Emily Giglierano and Matt Watson, and the great-grandchildren June, Aeolia and Clara. Phyllis loved them all and enriched their lives with her incredible repository of memories, mostly of the kind of everyday moment that usually gets forgotten but, when remembered, makes our understanding of ourselves and of the past more complete.