Maria Teresa Tirol Behan Obituary (1931 - 2022)

Maria Teresa Tirol Behan, 90, of West Caldwell, NJ, formerly of Clifton, NJ, passed away on Sunday, Feb. 13, 2022. Relatives and friends may visit with the family at Paul Ippolito-Dancy Memorial, 9 Smull Ave., Caldwell, on Friday, Feb. 18, 2022, from 4 pm to 8 pm. A Funeral Mass will be offered at St. Aloysius Church, Caldwell, on Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022, at 9:30 am, immediately followed by the internment at Immaculate Conception Cemetery, Montclair. (Masks are required in the funeral home and church). The Mass will be available to view via live stream at https://youtu.be/a_ew377N6e8. Born in Iloilo, Philippines, the eldest of twelve children to Josefina Tayengco Tirol and Benjamin Hontiveros Tirol, Mrs. Behan was a resident of Clifton, New Jersey for 45 years before moving to West Caldwell in 2019 to be near family. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines, and was employed as a medical technologist at Passaic General Hospital for many years and finally Metpath Laboratories before retiring in 1996. The beloved wife of the late Michael Patrick Behan, she was the loving mother of Maria Lavin and her husband, Peter, Patrick Behan and his wife, Karyn, Maureen Finguerra and her husband Mark, and cherished grandmother to Kyle Lavin, PJ Behan, Piper Behan, Michael Finguerra and Tatum Finguerra. She is survived by brothers Cesar T. Tirol, Salvador T. Tirol and Eduardo T. Tirol of the Philippines and sister, Gloria T. Goodman of the United Kingdom. She was an avid sports enthusiast who enjoyed watching the Olympics, tennis - especially her favorites Pete Sampras and Roger Federer - football great Kenny "the Snake" Stabler and rooting on the Giants the Yankees. In her 70's she took up an old hobby and enjoyed a successful season of entrepreneurship selling her popular hand knit and crocheted scarves in her daughter's boutique. She was always youthful, fooling everyone into thinking she was much younger than her actual years. Prayer was her ultimate passion, and she drove herself to church daily, attended masses on tv during the lockdown, and to the very end, she continued to inspire us to pray. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to a cause dearest to her heart, feeding children. Following are suggestions: No Kid Hungry Share Our Strength, P.O. Box 715475, Philadelphia, PA 191171-5475 https://www.nokidhungry.org Save The Children, P.O. Box 97132, Washington, DC 20090-7132 https://www.savethechildren.org Healing the Children, 112 Fifth Avenue, Hawthorne, NJ, 07506 https:// htcnj.org