Obituary of Violet Ann Sowa-Badders

Funeral Mass to take place at St. Joseph Catholic Church. See service info below. A reception will follow the interment at a place to be determined.

Violet and Tom met in 1978 in Mechanicsburg, PA – both working at the Navy Ships Parts Control Center.   

Their first two dates were very memorable and set the stage for 45 years of happiness together.

Violet loved the mountains and the beaches. Tom and Violet spent a lot of time in the mountains at Shenandoah Big Meadows campground, camping and hiking and even used it as a retreat from Three Mile Island during its meltdown. When they were not in the mountains, they were enjoying their favorite oceanfront destination in Bethany Beach – the Blue Surf motel.  

When Tom and Violet were working in Mechanicsburg, Violet was also attending Harrisburg Area Community College and received her degree as a registered nurse. Around that same time, Tom was asked by his company to move to Reston, Virginia where it was headquartered. With a move on the horizon, Tom asked Violet to marry him and move to Virginia. Once they were settled  in Virginia, Violet started as a nurse at Children's hospital in the pediatric care unit and then at Loudoun Hospital’s newborn nursery.  Violet was so generous with her love for the children she was caring for and brought home stories of amazing recovery and tragic loss. The children and their parents all loved Violet very much.  She was always going out of her way to do anything she could to make their lives better.  

In 1982 they bought their house in Sterling, Virginia where they would start a family. They added Sean, Amanda and Brandon to the Badders crew along with countless dogs, cats, hermit crabs, rabbits, and fish. After Brandon was born, she decided to stay home to be a mom and take care of her three beautiful children but continued to work jobs in the evenings and on the weekends to contribute to the family financially. Some of those jobs were delivering The Washington Post which included many weekends rolling papers and throwing them from the truck, and eventually the Pink Jeep, and stepping in as a crossing guard within the neighborhood. Once her kids went to school, Violet went back to nursing – first at Sully Elementary School, then at Horizon Elementary.  

Violet was always doing everything she could for her family, whether that was caring for her children at home, chaperoning school trips, single handedly saving rained out camping trips, or simply just adding fun to each and every day.

Not only was she supportive, but she made everything fun. She was the brains behind the operation to ‘borrow’ a noise ordinance sign from Dewey Beach to hang in our backyard. She was also the driving force of countless memorable 4th of July celebrations which included highly illegal explosives from Phantom Fireworks. She frequently played harmless jokes with the goal of making people smile - and it always worked. Like the time she convinced everyone she worked with to gift the school principal (a dear friend) a new coffee mug for Christmas when he specifically asked for no more coffee mugs. Or when she pranked that same friend with a remote controlled whoopie cushion in his office - little did she know, he had a formal meeting during the afternoon she decided to deploy the whoopie cushion. 

As they grew their family, Tom and Violet continued taking their kids camping and to the beach every year.  Around 2004, Tom and Violet bought a piece of property in Holden Beach, where they planned to build their retirement home. During a visit to North Carolina with friends they discovered Ocean Isle Beach, where they found a great oceanfront house with a big front porch with rocking chairs. After trying out the porch with a few drinks and the ocean view, Violet called the vacation rental company and rented it for the next summer and for 2 weeks every summer for many years after that.  As their family continued to grow, they rented a larger house for the first week while the kids and grandkids were there, then Violet and Tom moved to the smaller oceanfront house for the second week, where they spent time with friends and other family members. Of course, Violet's cooking was always the main event when we were all together.  Her asian barbecue brisket and her southern shrimp boil meals were must haves. Sean and Brandon developed Violet’s expertise and love of cooking great food and the three of them had such wonderful times together planning and preparing meals – and the rest of us loved it too – we loved eating!

Violet was always doing something for someone. Whether it was for a family of underprivileged kids, collecting winter coats and warm clothes and bringing them to the Knights of Columbus for distribution to families that couldn’t afford them, supporting Backpack Buddies to help children who needed school supplies and food for the start of the school year, creating beautiful crocheted blankets for every new baby that came into their large circle of friends and family, or prayer shawls for friends to give to other loved ones.

Violet was the most loving, caring person – always thinking of others before herself – always loving being with our family and friends – loving so much how our family has grown – first with Sean, Amanda, and Brandon’s spouses – Heather, Chris, and Amy – then with our 4 beautiful grandchildren.  She couldn’t do enough for them to make sure they had everything they needed or wanted.  When her first grandson, Landry was born, she flew back and forth to Charlotte to take care of him for weeks at a time and Tom and Violet went down and stayed with Landry when his little brother Callen was born. Violet took care of Amanda and Chris’s son Case for the better part of three years before he started going to school and then most recently spent every weekday with Case’s baby sister Charlee for the first year of her life.

Violet was a one of a kind that brightened our lives for 70 amazing years.

She will be terribly missed for a very long time.