Obituary
Mary Josephine “Josie” Galvin, of Sarasota, lost her battle with cancer on April 5, 2018 in Winter Park, Florida. She was 82 years old.
Josie was born on November 22, 1935 in Detroit, Michigan to Norbert and Thelma Wiesler. She attended Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, married young and lived for a time in Elmira, New York and Chicago, Illinois, eventually buying a summer cottage in Harbor Springs, Michigan, in addition to spending the winter months at her house in Sarasota.
In the 1970s, she became an owner of the Country Hearth restaurant in Petoskey, Michigan, where she also worked as a bookkeeper and hostess. Her outgoing nature drew people to her, many of whom became lifelong friends. She loved to travel; her adventures took her to the Caribbean, Europe and even to a safari in Africa.
Josie also loved her camera, and no one who visited her summer home will ever forget the walls decorated with hundreds of candid photos of family and friends. She married her second husband Jim in the living room of her Michigan home in 1981.
She rooted for the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs, drove a canary-yellow Lexus, worked a crossword puzzle nearly every day and always enjoyed a good glass of wine, a rum and Coke (or two) before dinner, Gurney’s sandwiches, planked whitefish and toasted coconut ice cream (from local establishments in Harbor Springs). In Sarasota, Josie played canasta, attended weekly trivia contests and enjoyed a close bond with her generous friends and neighbors.
She was preceded in death by her husband, James Galvin, in 2003, and by her sisters Mary Elizabeth “Bep” Halpin in 2005 and Mary Margaret “Marno” Feltz in 2013. Josie is survived by her brother-in-law Richard “Skip” Halpin of Winter Park, three stepsons, eight nieces and nephews, their children and everyone who loved her so very much.
No funeral service is planned. A celebration of her life will be held in July in Harbor Springs, Michigan. To bolster the fight to eradicate cancer, please consider a donation in her memory to the American Cancer Society (cancer.org).
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