Lillian Kapustensky Butkiewicz

Lillian K. Butkiewicz, “Lil”, died Saturday, March 9, 2019 in Bel Air, MD. She was 90 years old. The daughter of John Martin and Anna Shelefka Kapustensky, Lillian was born in Wilkes-Barre, PA where her father owned a grocery store and her mother worked in a lace factory. During high school, Lil played the piano and was the class valedictorian which earned her a full tuition scholarship to the Misericordia University in Dallas, PA near the cities of Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, PA. She graduated Magna Cum Laude and was a member of the Kappa Gamma Pi sorority since she was in the top ten percent of her class. It was while riding the bus to and from college that she first met her future husband, Chester, but not until they were both in their friends’ wedding that they started dating. In 1949, she became a business teacher for three years at Beaver Fall Central School in New York. It was while teaching that she remembered Chester surprised her with a visit and she turned as red as the dress she was wearing. After her marriage to Dr. Chester Anthony Butkiewicz in 1952, she and her husband taught for Harford County Public Schools in Maryland. She earned her Master’s Degree in Education from Towson State University on May 31, 1970. Retired from Harford Community College as a Director of Community Education, she is best remembered as designing, organizing, and conducting a 30-lesson television program for Maryland Public Television which she later designed as a graduate-level course for Morgan State University. She was also a two-year President for Maryland’s Public State-Supported Education that allowed her future work as an adjunct faculty for teaching Speech classes. Her volunteer work consisted as a 3-year Director for the Harford Adult Development Center and as co-facilitator for a five-year plan of St. Joan of Arc Parish in Aberdeen, MD. The past 3 1/2 years she lived at the Brightview Avondell Independent Living Center of Bel Air, MD, participating in Wii Bowling, Chair Yoga, Art Class, and Drama Club. She is survived by her children Jerome Butkiewicz and his wife Mary, of LaPlata, MD, Anne Marie Nicodemus and her husband John of Bel Air, MD, Diane Harvey and her husband Randall of Powell, OH, Mark Butkiewicz and his wife Pam of North East, MD, and Marcia Frances and her husband Bob of Hampstead, MD. She is also survived by one sibling, Russell Kapustensky and his wife Lynda of Fallston, MD, thirteen grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. Family will receive friends on Friday, March 15, from 5-8pm at TARRING-CARGO FUNERAL HOME, 333 S. Parke Street, Aberdeen, MD 21001. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Saturday, March 16 at 10:00am, at St. Joan of Arch Church in Aberdeen, MD by co-celebrants Msgr. Kevin Schenning and Rev. William Franken. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in her memory to St. Margaret Church, 141 N. Hickory Avenue, Bel Air, MD 21014 or St. Joan of Arc Church, 222 Law Street, Aberdeen, MD 21001. The family would like to express sincere thanks to Katherine’s Keepers and the staff at Amedisys and Brightview Avondell for their love, dedication, and support.