Valerie Lavin

Valerie H.Lavin, 97, a longtime Prince's Bay resident whose passions were her family, her faith and gardening, died Tuesday in Carmel Richmond Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, Dongan Hills, where she had resided for almost four years.

Born Valerie Helen Koliski in Somerset, Pa., she moved to Manhattan in 1939. She met Thomas Lavin on her lunch break in Battery Park and the couple fell in love; they wed in December 1944 and settled in Prince's Bay in 1947.

Mrs. Lavin worked for several years at the Infant Home of the former Mount Loretto Orphanage in Pleasant Plains.

She was a Girl Scout troop leader at Our Lady Star of the Sea R.C. Church, Huguenot, and had received the Juliette Lowe award for Girl Scouting.

A member of the Staten Island Garden Club and a past president of the South Shore Garden Club, Mrs. Lavin was accredited by Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., in horticultural design and was recognized as a horticultural judge by the National Federation of Garden Clubs. With her husband, she traveled to England, Europe and South America, where she participated as a judge in international garden shows and visited many renowned gardens.

She was an active parishioner of Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, where she served as a lector and Eucharistic minister, and altar lady. She decorated the church with floral arrangements year round and for holidays, but especially loved doing so at Christmas. She also was a member of Court Veronica, Catholic Daughters of the Americas.

Thomas, her husband of 69 years, died in January.

Surviving are her sons, Patrick and Thomas; her daughters, Constance Lindsey and Mary Anna Donohue; her sister, Mary Koliski; eight grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren.

The funeral will be Saturday from the Bedell-Pizzo Funeral Home, Tottenville, with a mass at 10 a.m. in Our Lady Star of the Sea Church. Burial will follow in Resurrection Cemetery, Pleasant Plains.

Services: Our Lady Star of the Sea RC Church Saturday, February 22, 2014 10:00AM

Visitation: Bedell-Pizzo Funeral Home Friday, February 21, 2014 3-7PM

Cemetery: Resurrection Cemetery (Staten Island)

Location: Bedell-Pizzo Funeral Home

Church: Our Lady Star of the Sea R.C.Church