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Matilda Rizik
Born: 8/2/1920
Died: 3/22/2022
Age: 101
Community: Grand Blanc, MI
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RIZIK, MATILDA
Some lives are too big to fit into an obituary. The life of Matilda Bouhasin Rizik is one of them. “Tillie” was born on August 2, 1920, in St. Louis, Missouri and died on March 22, 2022 in Grand Blanc, Michigan, more than one hundred and one years of life and love later. She was an unduplicatable combination of pride, humility, brains, talent, spirit, grit and, above all, love. She was a fighter, who drank Bailey’s, sang opera, spoke three languages, prayed the rosary every day, worked endlessly, and refused to surrender to anything. To know her was to understand the title, The Greatest Generation.
Tillie started working at age 10 in her father’s office. At age 18, she entered nursing school and began singing as a soprano in the St. Louis Municipal Opera. She went on to become a Registered Nurse and a pioneer in the field of care for prematurely born babies (until the day she died, she could rattle off the names and weights of babies she had helped save). During World War II, she worked in canteens for American soldiers and traveled to multiple cities to help establish hospital nurseries for premature babies.
In 1951, she gave up nursing and the opera when she married Michael Rizik and started a family. Mike and Tillie had seven children in nine years, put all of them through Catholic schools and college, and watched them become lawyers, CPAs, a nurse, a doctor, the head of a private equity firm, and an officer of a Fortune 500 company.
After her children grew, she resurrected her nursing career and then worked as treasurer of her husband’s accounting firm. At age 70, at the invitation of her son George, she started her last career, office manager for a law firm. She worked full-time (plus a little extra on Saturdays) at that firm for thirty-one years. During the last fifteen years, after her husband’s death, she never took a real vacation.
On March 17, 2022, she was admitted to Ascension Hospital in Grand Blanc. She received the Anointing of the Sick on March 20 from her pastor and friend, Fr. Pierre Bassil. She told her sons that she was dying but that she wanted to live until March 22, the anniversary of her husband’s death. Her last words, on Monday night, March 21, were “wait a minute.” She died on March 22.
She loved and was proud of her parents and siblings. Despite the fact that Tillie was beautiful, smart and talented, she insisted that she was least in her family. She was predeceased by her father Abraham, her mother Regina, her sisters Rosamond, Marie, Josephine and Sadie, and her brother, George. She is survived by her brother, John.
It is impossible to describe her love for her husband and children. For every second, of every hour, of every day for seventy-one years, she gave all that she had to her family. She was predeceased by her husband Michael and her grandson Brian. She is survived by her children, Michael Jr., George, Regina, Matthew, Mark, David and Christopher, her children by marriage and affection, Wendy (Michael Jr.), Karen (George), Keith (Regina) Dunnavant, Diane (Mark), Tracy (David), and Colette (Christopher), twenty-four grandchildren, and eleven great grandchildren.
A visitation will be held on Thursday, March 24, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., at Swartz Funeral Home, 1225 W. Hill Road, Flint, Michigan. A Rosary will be prayed at 7 p.m. Thursday at the funeral home.
Mrs. Rizik will be at the church from 10 a.m. Friday until the time of the Mass.
A Funeral Mass will be held on Friday, March 25, at 11:00 a.m., at Our Lady of Lebanon Catholic Church, 4133 Calkins Road, Flint, Michigan, Father Pierre T. Bassil officiating.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Our Lady of Lebanon Catholic Church.
“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.”
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83377677980?pwd=cGZwTVZ6QktndWZFdWwvN0l2ZldyUT09
Your condolences may be shared with the family at swartzfuneralhomeinc.com
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| Visitation |
| Date: |
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3/24/2022 |
| Time: |
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5:00 PM |
| A visitation will be held on Thursday, March 24, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., at Swartz Funeral Home, 1225 W. Hill Road, Flint, Michigan. A Rosary will be prayed at 7 p.m. Thursday at the funeral home. |
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| Funeral Service |
| Date: |
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3/25/2022 |
| Time: |
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11:00 AM |
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| Location: |
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Our Lady of Lebanon Catholic Church
4133 Calkins Road
Flint, MI 48507Get a Map to this location...
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