Grace M. Garbaczewski

Born on April 12, 1925, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Passed April 3, 2025 in Indian Harbour Beach, Florida

Grace M. Garbaczewski
Born April 12, 1925 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Passed April 3, 2025 in Indian Harbour Beach, Florida

Grace Garbaczewski passed away peacefully in her sleep at her home in Indian Harbour Beach nine days before her 100th birthday. Although a native of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Grace’s parents, Arthur A. and Isabel (Fitzgerald) Chabot, moved the family to Haverhill, Massachusetts when she and her older sister, Doris, were very young.

She attended St. Joseph Elementary School and is a graduate of Haverhill High School. She met her husband, Stephen F. Garbaczewski, while they were employed as welders at the Portsmouth Naval shipyard during WWII, and they were married on September 15, 1945. In 1951, the couple and their first daughter moved into the house that Steve had built in the evenings after work and weekends over a two-year period. After her husband’s death in 1993, Grace continued to reside in her home until 2011 when she relocated to Indian Harbour Beach, Florida to be closer to family and to enjoy the milder winters.

Grace worked for approximately twenty years at the L.H. Hamel leather complex in Haverhill as a skilled leather skiver. In 1975, she took a position at Bell Labs which eventually became AT&T/Lucent Technologies and retired after 15 years of service.

She was the best mother imaginable, always encouraging, insightful, gentle, patient, loving and nonjudgmental. She cherished being a homemaker and took great pride in her cooking, baking and housekeeping skills. She also enjoyed crocheting, knitting, quilting and tatting and relished crafting beautiful gifts for her family and friends.

Grace was full of grace and amazing. No job was too trivial or too difficult. She was determined to give it her all. She had a good heart, joyful disposition and genuine concern for the needs of others. Her family and friends will miss her sweet nature, kindness, beautiful smile, sense of humor and undaunting Faith in Divine Providence that provided her with such inner peace. She would always say, “What will be, will be.”

She is survived by her daughters Joyce M. Miller (John) and Karen Garbaczewski; granddaughter Stephanie; great-granddaughter Adaline and several nieces and nephews.

Her Funeral Mass will be celebrated on Tuesday April 29, 2025 at 11 am at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church, 3050 N. Highway A1A, Indian Harbour Beach, Florida 32903.