Dr. Yolanda Holliger 4/5/1938 to 3/30/2013 tribute

Dr. Yolanda Holliger (nee Tomaiuoli), age 74 of Wayne, passed away on Saturday, March 30, 2013.

Yolanda was an accomplished musician and became good friends with Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen.  She gave Venerable Sheen organ lessons and the match maker he was Sheen introduced Yolanda to his cousin Thomas Holliger.  Eventually Thomas proposed to Yolanda in the Bishop's chapel at his residence in New York and the Bishop conducted a solemn betrothel ceremony right then and there, then celebrated with the happy couple and chose their wedding date that very day.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen married Thomas Reed Holliger and Yolanda Tomaiuoli Holliger June 18, 1961 at the main altar St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. 

Later Yolanda's daughter Rosemarie Holliger Costello was married to her husband Brian in the same wedding dress at St. Patrick's Cathedral and in 2012 her daughter was married in that dress in Oklahoma. 

Following her marriage to her beloved husband of 44 years, Thomas Holliger, the couple began a life journey together and lived in various places including Tonawanda, NY, Packanack Lake and St. Petersburg, FL before returning to Packanack Lake in 1977. Wherever they lived, Yolanda always maintained a studio in which she taught students to play piano.

Despite all her accomplishments, nothing was more important to Yolanda than her faith in God and her love for her family. She will be missed by all of them and is survived by her six children: Rosemarie Costello and husband Brian of Edmond, OK, Michele Betz and husband William of Wayne, Aileen Lange and husband Frank of Lincoln Park, Thomas Holliger and wife Michele of Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Maureen Karsen and husband Keith of Pompton Plains, and Michael Holliger and wife Deanna of Denver, CO; and two sisters-in-law: Cookie Tomaiuoli of Syracuse, NY and Patsy Landholt of Columbus, OH.  Yolanda was predeceased by her beloved husband Thomas in 2004, as well as her brother Matthew and brother-in-law Gerald Landholt.  



Yolanda Holliger and Archbishop Sheen




Tom & Yoland Holliger with Sheen



Archbishop Fulton Sheen baptizes Yolanda's daughter Rosemarie Holliger in 1961 (He baptized all of Tom and Yolanda's children)

Sheen would read bedtime stories to Rosemarie in Latin

Rosemarie & Sheen



Rosemarie & Sheen

Archbishop Sheen Confirmed Yolanda's daughter Rosemarie Holliger March 10, 1975


Rosemarie Holliger Confimation

Rosemarie, Tommy, Maureen, Tom, Sheen, Yolanda, Michael Fulton Sheen, Aileen & Michelle

Arturo Tomaiuoli, George Holliger, Tom & Yolanda, Sheen, Reeda Eibeck Holliger, Rosella & Lillian

Yolanda, Sheen and Reeda Eibeck Holliger

Tom and Yolanda were at the Mass where Archbishop Fulton Sheen hugged Blessed John Paul II at St. Patrick's Cathedral.  They both visited Venerable Sheen the day before he died and it was at this visit that Bishop Sheen gave Tom and Yolanda this photo and wrote the beautiful inscription on it as well. 



To my dear cousin Tom, Yolanda and Family with the love and blessing of the Rock and the Pebble