TAMPA — It was not uncommon for Mary Calohan Stankiewicz to break her tiny, 118-pound body into sprightly dance moves.
She had no formal training, just a feeling in her feet. If catchy music came on in the grocery store, she'd dance. If she was at home cooking, she'd dance.
Through everything, her spirit stayed light.
Ms. Stankiewicz, a homemaker from Tampa, died Oct. 30 at age 78 after a 12-year battle with Alzheimer's disease.
She went through complicated highs and lows in her life, her daughter said — physical abuse and sadness, the death of three husbands, the slow deterioration of her mind and body.
"There were many, many sad things, but there were so many happy things," said daughter Marie Lazenby. "So many happy things."
• Her Thanksgiving dinners — elaborate, well balanced, with stuffing no one could replicate, even with the exact recipe.
• Her love of ironing, and her disregard for what people thought. She'd stand on her front porch in Tampa in nothing but culottes and a cone-shaped bra pressing the family's clothes.
• Her pretty black hair and her red lipstick.
• Her daily meals. She went through 50-pound bags of potatoes each week because her second husband, Carl Calohan — the love of her life who died at age 43 — loved them.
• Her discipline. When her children tried to avoid a spanking, she didn't scream at them. She told them they could run, but they eventually had to come back, and she wouldn't forget. She never did.
• Her enthusiasm. As a chaperone at school dances, she moved circles around the kids.
• Her generosity. She and Calohan took in friends' children and raised them as their own.
• Her desire to never be alone.
• Her boisterous cheering from the stands at weekly Golden Gate Speedway auto races, and from her couch watching NASCAR on television.
• Her Lhasa apso, Gizmo. Her baby kitten, Kitty Kitty.
• Her will to survive for five years after going through a surgery doctors said might kill her.
• Her favorite sitting position — curled up, one foot folded on top of the knee.
• Her habit, late in life, of pressing clothes with the iron unplugged. The motion soothed her.
• Her unchanging spirit. When Lazenby brought her mother to adult day care for the first time, she was scared to leave her there. But when her mother heard old music playing in the background, she smiled and started to dance.
Stephanie Hayes can be reached at shayes@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8857.
>>Biography
Mary Calohan Stankiewicz
Born: May 14, 1930.
Died: Oct. 30, 2008.
Survivors: children, Marie Lazenby and her husband, Randy, Cherol Brown and her husband, Warren, William Calohan and his wife, Gail; adopted daughter, Irene Burge; brother, James Roberts and his wife, Eloise; three grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; many nieces and nephews.
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