Mary Elizabeth Sheehan

          YOUNGSTOWN – Mary Elizabeth Sheehan, 65, wife of former Catholic Exponent editor Pete Sheehan, died May 21 at UPMC’s Shadyside Hospital, Pittsburgh after an almost two decade-long battle with cancer.

          Born Oct. 13, 1957, in Rockville Centre, Long Island, N.Y., she,  grew up in Valley Stream and later Oyster Bay, Long Island, one of five children of Dolores and Joseph, Grieco. She graduated from St. Dominic’s High School, Oyster Bay. She studied at Niagara University. She later graduated with a bachelor’s degree in food and nutrition from Marywood University, Scranton, Pa. She later studied at the Long Island Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, N.Y., receiving a master’s in nutrition.

For years she served as a registered dietician for the Long Island Development Center/Long Island Development and Disability Services, Melville, N.Y., a New York State agency, supervising dietary needs for residents with developmental and other disabilities.

Mrs. Sheehan was involved in various Church-related services including the charismatic renewal, young adult ministry, St. Dominic’s Parish, and also the Oyster Bay Co-op Pre-School and the Oyster Bay public schools.

In 1995, she married Pete Sheehan, then-senior reporter for The Long Island Catholic. They lived in E. Islip, N.Y., and later Oyster Bay, where they raised two sons, Joseph and Michael. They also lost two children – Sean and  Noel – to miscarriage.

Mrs. Sheehan retired in 2015 and moved with her family to Youngstown. She volunteered for years at Café Augustine in Youngstown, a restaurant that provides employment, job and life training for disadvantaged youth, the Christian Women’s Connection, St. Christine Parish and various support groups.

Those who knew Mrs. Sheehan praised her as a devoted wife and mother, as well as daughter, sister, and aunt, as a faithful friend and a valiant woman of faith.

She enjoyed exercise, reading, listening to music, and spending time with her family.

Mrs. Sheehan leaves: her husband, Pete of Youngstown; sons Joseph of Long Island and Michael of Youngstown; her mother, Dolores Grieco of Oyster Bay; sisters Anne Crawford of Little River, South Carolina, and Susan Grieco of Pleasantville, N.Y.; brothers Greg Grieco of Saratoga, N,Y,, and Edward Grieco of Atlanta, Georgia; brother and sister-in-law Tom and Gail Sheehan and many nieces and nephews, one great-nephew, one great niece; and many cousins who she regarded as sisters and brothers.

Funeral Mass will be offered at 11 a.m. May 30 at St. Christine Church here. Calling hours are at the Augustine Funeral Home, 75 E. Midlothian Blvd. Youngstown OH 44507 (234)254-8403 from 5 to 7 p.m. May 29, and at St. Christine May 30 from 10 to 11 a.m. before the funeral.

The family asks that material tributes take the form of donations to the Café Augustine, the Mahoning St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Yellow Brick Place of Youngstown, or Marriage Encounter of Eastern Ohio.

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