Mariano J. Gaspari, known to most as \u201cSonny,\u201d passed away peacefully on June 7, 2026,\u00a0at Southeastern Veterans Center, Spring City, PA.<\/p>\n
He was the widower of Christina Louise \u201cTina\u201d (Koch) Gaspari, whom he married on October 13, 1962.<\/p>\n
Born September 2, 1941, in Reading, he was a son of the late Emidio and Anna (Raffanelli) Gaspari.<\/p>\n
Sonny was a faithful member of Holy Guardian Angels Roman Catholic Church, Hyde Park. He proudly served his country in the United States Marine Corps.<\/p>\n
Sonny dedicated many years of service throughout his working career. He owned and operated Gaspari Carpet Cleaning for 15 years; he worked in the maintenance department for Western Electric in Muhlenberg Township for 1\u00bd years; spent 14 years in the bindery at Williams O. Flat Printing Company, Reading; served as road foreman for Temple Borough for 9 years; and subsequently with Muhlenberg Township, in the same capacity for 20 years. In addition, he worked for 18 years as a funeral director assistant with Stitzel Family Funeral Homes, Laureldale.<\/p>\n
When he was not working you could find him serving with the USMC League, where he also served as Chaplain; helping a friend; or at park listening to an oldies band singing and dancing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A lifetime member of Victor Emmanuel\u2019s men\u2019s lodge, Sonny loved bowling in the club\u2019s bowling league.\u00a0 He was also once an avid softball\u00a0player.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sonny is survived by his girlfriend Kathleen Spolski of Temple; by his four daughters, Maria Weitzel (Mark) of Leesport, Tracy Gaspari-Reese of Leesport, Donna Genslinger (Robert) of Leesport and Chrissy Busch (Fred) of Leesport;\u00a0by his 11 grandchildren, nine great grandchildren and four step great grandchildren; and by his sister, Rosemarie, wife of David Goss of Reinholds.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition to his wife and parents, Sonny was predeceased by his sister Madeline (Gaspari) Smith.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Viewings will be held Thursday evening from 6-8 and Friday morning from 8:30-9:30 in Stitzel Family Funeral Homes & Crematory, Inc., 3300 Kutztown Road, Laureldale.<\/p>\n
A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Friday at 10 a.m. in Holy Guardian Angels R.C. Church, 3121 Kutztown Road, Hyde Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Burial with Military Honors will be in Gethsemane Cemetery, Muhlenberg Township.<\/p>\n
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to: USMC League – R. M. Butterweck Det. 465, and mailed to 550 Columbia Ave., Sinking Spring, PA 19608.<\/p>\n
Stitzel Family Funeral Homes & Crematory, Inc., Laureldale is in charge of arrangements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n To send flowers<\/a>
\n to the family or plant a tree<\/a>
\n in memory of Mariano “Sonny” Joseph Gaspari, please visit our floral store.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mariano J. Gaspari, known to most as \u201cSonny,\u201d passed away peacefully on June 7, 2026,\u00a0at Southeastern Veterans Center,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3819,94173,3026,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-214960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-death-notice","tag-mariano-sonny-joseph-gaspari-obituary","tag-obituaries","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}