Mary M. Sachetti

1926 - 2019

Mary M. Sachetti, 93, West Hazleton, died Friday in Bloomsburg.

Born March 25, 1926, she was the first daughter and third of eight children born to John and Mary (Garbacik) Swantek of Clay Avenue.

A child of the Great Depression, she was pressured at home to quit school after ninth grade and enter the workforce. But she stubbornly insisted on finishing high school, graduating from the former West Hazleton High with the Class of 1944.

The true and lasting love of Mary's life began on a Thursday evening before Easter when she and a girlfriend went to the former Knotty Pines restaurant in Hazleton, where a handsome young man asked her to dance. The following Monday at her job in Hazleton's Shirtcraft factory, one of the other girls told Mary she had met her boyfriend the night before at a dance in Harwood Mines. 

"Boyfriend," she exclaimed, "I don't even know his name!"

It turned out to be Maurice Sachetti, an artist just starting out as a sign painter. She was Polish, and he was Italian; in those days, this was a big problem. But he was determined to marry her, and was not to be thwarted. It took him two years to win her (quite a few more to finally win over her mother). They were married Feb. 3, 1951, in Transfiguration Roman Catholic Church, West Hazleton.

For the rest of their married life, if he did something to annoy her she would complain, half-jokingly, that he was her penance for going out dancing during Lent. After their marriage, they set up housekeeping next door to her parents, and she remained their dutiful daughter until their deaths in 1971.

They raised two sons, James of Bloomsburg and Leonard of Allentown. Mom took care of home and family while working as a seamstress; Dad ran his business, Sachetti Signs.

After retiring at 62, Mary joined the women who cleaned the church sanctuary weekly; well into her 80s, she ran the fried dough stand at the annual Transfiguration Parish picnic. She also managed to pry her "Marcie" away from his sign shop for bus excursions to Atlantic City, Broadway shows and New York Mets games, and for trips to Disney World, Bermuda and Hawaii.

They worked side by side and enjoyed 55 years together until his death in 2006.  

Surviving, in addition to her sons, are Jim's wife, Kathleen, who treated Mary as if she were her own mother, caring for her in their home as dementia and cancer took their terrible toll.

Also surviving are three granddaughters, Rachel, wife of Brandon Lanier, Bristow, Va.; Charlotte Sachetti, Winter Garden, Fla.; and Salina, wife of James John Reinmiller, Breinigsville, Lehigh County; two great-grandsons, Caden and Jace Lanier; a brother, James Swantek, Hazleton; and many nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by brothers Leo, Louis, Larry and John Swantek Jr.; and by sisters Theresa Urglavitch and Frances, who joined the Bernadine Order of nuns as Sister Coralita.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Tuesday at 10 a.m. in Holy Name of Jesus (Transfiguration) Church, 213 W. Green St., West Hazleton; burial to follow at Calvary Cemetery, Drums. Family and friends may pay their respects at the church, beginning at 9 a.m.

The family will provide flowers. Contributions in her memory may be made to Holy Name of Jesus Parish, 213 W. Green St., West Hazleton, PA 18202.

Sign the guest book, leave personal condolences and for further information please visit www.thomasmsullivanfuneralhome.com.

Thomas M. Sullivan Funeral Home, Frackville, is in charge of the arrangements.