Christine Zapalski

Christine was born on Thursday, December 3rd, 1925, in Erie Pa., and passed away on Friday March 28th, 2025, at 6:35 in the morning.  She passed away peacefully, in her own home, in her own bed, with her oldest daughter Diana, and her granddaughter Kiersten, at her side, holding her hands, as she took her last breath.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

She was sharp mentally until her final days, and as recently as Thanksgiving 2024 she was still sneaking down the stairs into the basement to get her own toilet paper, which she would toss up the stairs from below.  She insisted on her independence until the end of her days, living solo in her little house on Ardmore Avenue.

 She lived in many different places throughout her ninety-nine years.  She married at St. Stanislaus Church in 1948 and at the side of her career military husband began married life at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina and then Ft. Ord, California.  The family then traveled on to Japan and Turkey with a final post at the Pentagon and residence in Falls Church Virginia.  Her husband's retirement in 1966 led the family to the San Gabriel Valley in Southern California.  Following her husband's death in 1977, she moved to Northern California and the town of Santa Rosa where she lived until her retirement from her career with the phone company.  In 2007 she returned to her hometown of Erie, PA to care for her sister, Lucille, who was recovering from an accident.  It was on that trip, and on the spur of the moment, that she bought her little house in Millcreek where she lived until her final days.  She lived life on her own terms!

She was preceded in death by her mother Anna Konkol Gorny when she was twelve years of age, her father Cassius Bernard Gorny, her husband Major Daniel John Zapalski, her stepmother Dorothy Gallo Gorny, and her five sisters Rita, Margie, Lucille, Mary-Alice and Jeannie.  Her brother Dr. John Russell Gorny remains and lives in Maine.

 She leaves behind her five children Daniel, Diana, Timothy, Christopher, Maria, eleven grandchildren Dina, Ted, Kiersten, Brian, Heather, Nathan, Alicia, Cassius, Ben, Rylan, Cody and seven great-grandchildren.

 She was a truly devout Catholic who earned and deserved the blessed and long life she experienced.  “Talk to God” was always her advice to her youngest son, Christopher. Christopher relates that of all the places she lived over the years, Santa Rosa was by far the most beautiful. Luther Burbank would agree.

Interment will be at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia to be at rest with her husband.  A Memorial Mass will be held at St. Stanislaus Church, 516 East 13th Street, Erie, Pennsylvania 16503, on Saturday, May 10, 2025, at 11:00 AM.

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