Mary Lou Yemc

Mary Lou passed away peacefully due to complications from a stroke during the evening of June 18, 2025, at the Health Care Center of Foulk Living in Wilmington, DE at the age of 95. She lived a vibrant life.

Mary Lou was the oldest child of John and Helen Kreidler of Sandusky, OH. She graduated from St. Mary Central Catholic High School in 1947. Her attendance at the College of Mount St. Joseph on the Ohio, Cincinnati, OH was cut short after freshman year due to her mother’s debilitating illness; she moved back home to Sandusky to assist her father in caring for her four younger brothers. Mary Lou met Bernard Albert Yemc in Sandusky and they married in 1953.

For most of her life Mary Lou’s key vocation was homemaking.  With her experience of raising her four brothers with her father, she progressed to parenting five children of her own and then assisted in the upbringing of some of her ten grandchildren. She provided loving primary care to her husband Bernie for a decade as he battled dementia.

Mary Lou was active in her community. She served as a lay minister at The Church of the Holy Child, volunteered at the Society of St. Vincent dePaul, worked as an administrative assistant at Salesianum High School, and was a member of the DuPont Country Club.  Mary Lou enjoyed playing bridge, tennis, and golf, and traveled to many places in North America and Europe with her husband.  She had a special place in her heart for watching the sun set over the bay in Fenwick Island, DE.

Mary Lou is survived by her brother, Robert (Renata), of Rainier, WA, her brother, Leo (Marie), of North Canton, OH and her sister-in-law, Mary Fran Kreidler, of Sandusky, OH; her four sons: Bernard (Barbara Cottingham) of Newtown, CT, David (Nancy) of Annapolis, MD, William (Karen Pascale) of Wilmington, DE and Thomas (Susan) of Long Beach, IN; ten loving grandchildren (Peter, Theodore, Louisa, Andrew, Brian, Mark, Madeleine, Thomas, Rachael, Katherine); and three great-grandchildren (Oliver, Valentina, Marin).

She is predeceased by her husband (Bernard), parents, her infant sister (Catherine), her infant brother (Leonard), her brother (Jacob), her sister-in-law (Kathleen W. Kreidler), her brother (Joseph) and her only daughter (Anne Yemc Thomas).