Avon Obituary: Aileen Sweeton, 90

Aileen Sweeton of Avon, loving wife, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend died peacefully on April 20th, 2017 at home where she resided with her daughter Becky and her granddaughter Annie. She was 90 years old.

Aileen Rose Centilli was born in Grand Rapids Michigan on April 12th, 1927 to Sidney and Rose Centilli. She grew up in the area during the difficult depression years among the support of many family members. Her father was an upholsterer and her mother sewed, sewing everything from fine scarfs to the fabric on her uncle’s home built airplane.

During World War II, Aileen and her family waited nervously, like many people then, for word of her brother Sidney Junior who was deployed in the Pacific. He later returned a wounded soldier.

After high school, Aileen worked as a telephone switchboard operator. She later met the love of her life, her late husband Edward Raymond Sweeton from Forestville, while he was earning an engineering degree at the General Motors Institute in Michigan. Courageously, she left her family and native Michigan and moved east, where the two of them raised a baby boomer family of four children in Unionville. Once or twice a year, they would load the children into the family car and travel back to Michigan to be with her loving family.

Aileen lost her husband Edward to illness in 1981. When asked if she would ever marry again, she replied without hesitation “no, I’m a one man woman."

Aileen worked for many years in the Farmington school system as a teacher’s aide at the West District Elementary School. After she retired, you would often find her having dinner with her elderly mother at the Old Town Grill in Unionville. Many a time she would be recognized by past students, having then grown into adulthood, who would stop by and say “hi there Mrs. Sweeton!”

Aileen’s love for children carried over to her grandchildren which she enjoyed spending time with. Aileen will be dearly missed by family, daughter Susan Bondra and her husband Mike of Avon, daughter Cynthia Holden and her husband Richard of West Simsbury, daughter Rebeca Sweeton of Avon, son Jon Sweeton of Barkhamsted, grandchildren Becky Imperiale and husband Peter, Cody Bondra, Anna Holden and Annie Sweeton, and many nieces and nephews.

Friends and family are invited to call at The Ahern Funeral Home, 111 Main St., Rt. 4, Unionville on Tuesday (Apr. 25) from 5:00-7:00pm. The Funeral Liturgy will be celebrated Wednesday (Apr. 26) at 10:00am in the Church of St. Mary Star of the Sea, Unionville followed by burial in St. Mary Cemetery, Avon.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Shriners Hospitals for Children, 516 Carew Street, Springfield, MA 01104.