Obituary of Shirley Ann Iozzo

Shirley Ann Iozzo 

October 13, 1932 – February 2, 2026

Shirley Ann Iozzo, 93, passed away peacefully on February 2, 2026, and was reunited with her beloved husband, Gus, whom she celebrated 69 years of marriage. Shirley lived in Billerica for most of her life, but she lives in our hearts for all of ours.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Gus; her sons, Joe and John; and her daughter-in-law, Janet. She is survived by her son, Mike; her daughters-in-law, Ann-Marie and Sue, seven grandchildren; Jennifer, Jessica, Michael, Amanda, Nicole, Joe, and Tom, and nine great-grandchildren.  For Jennifer, Shirley was more of a second mother in every way that mattered. Shirley left a lifetime of memories that will continue to echo through generations.

Aside from being a loving wife, a mother to three boys, and a grandmother and great-grandmother to many, Shirley was a homemaker, a memory maker, and undoubtedly the anchor of her family as its matriarch.

She was not just a grandmother. She was a Grammy, and there’s a difference.

Her home in Billerica was more than a house. It was the place where everyone gathered, especially during summer days when school was out. Grammy had a rare ability to host five grandchildren for a weekend sleepover without ever losing her patience or her sense of humor. She navigated the constant rotation of children moving from the pool, to the shower to warm up, and right back into the pool again with quiet grace. Towels were always in steady rotation.

There was sledding down the “big” hill in her side yard, complete with a spaghetti pot of water poured on top to make the slopes extra slippery. Her sarcasm went right over our heads at the time when she would say, “Oh, you’re sledding down the hill? Be careful!” She watched us sled at Shed Park and launch off jumps in our snow tubes. She waited patiently, for hours it seemed, as we played, and just like the warm showers after exiting the pool, Grammy had hot chocolate waiting in a thermos so we could brave the hill a little longer.

Her calm, even during those adventures, was honed by years of watching her grandsons confidently toss lawn darts in her backyard with only mild supervision. There were other adventures too, like feeding ducks, trips to the movies where she was known to fit five cans of soda, five bags of chips, and an assortment of fun-size Milky Ways into a single purse without incident, or walks down the street to feed horses, which always doubled as an opportunity to get poison ivy.

We watched The Golden Girls and Empty Nest sprawled across her living room floor. We piled into Grampa’s van for ice cream runs to Bedford Farms.

Grammy knew how to manage sleeping arrangements. Blanket forts went up in the living room using couch cushions and dinner trays for support. We slept on the living room floor, in the den, in the little room, or were granted the coveted honor of sleeping in the screen house or the camper, which she and Grampa seemed to know would become part of the magic. Rotations mattered, especially as many summer stays were extended by a few extra nights. No one ever complained. How could we? She gave us summer days that felt endless and memories that quietly bound our family together long after childhood ended.

Grammy was an incredible cheerleader and encourager. Whether she was watching us show off how many sit-ups we could do on her springy ab exercise machine or proudly observing how far we could stretch or tumble in the living room, she was always paying attention, always clapping, always making sure we knew she was impressed. She would play with the girls’ hair before bed, one grandchild at a time, a small act of love that has stayed with us.

Grammy was a quiet co-conspirator, and nowhere was that more evident than during the prank wars between the grandchildren. She certainly seemed to have it in for the grandsons. That became unmistakable the morning the boys woke up tied to their beds, wearing one of the girls’ bras, or after washing their hair with a shampoo bottle filled with a water-and-flour mixture. The boys did manage one win when Grammy served the girls a glass of milk filled with salt, but history tends to remember Grammy’s loyalties.

Grammy also taught us how to share. Not in speeches or rules, but in the small, everyday ways that weekends together demanded. Disney popsicles and chocolate fudgsicles were split evenly. Sugar wafers, both the orange ones and the peanut butter kind, were passed around with care. Powdered donuts, Reese’s peanut butter cups, even the red box of Micro Magic French Fries waiting in the freezer somehow stretched so that everyone got some. In Grammy’s house, there was always enough, and learning to make it enough for everyone was just part of being there.

Don’t be mistaken, Grammy was also a disciplinarian. When discipline was required, she made liberal use of zoo threats. Misbehave, and you might find yourself headed to Stone Zoo, back when it had about four animals. We shuddered with comical fear whenever this threat was posed.

Later on, when the sleepovers had faded and most of us had grown to an age where priorities competed for our time, Grammy was still there in the small ways that mattered. On middle school afternoons, bike rides to Augusta Market or Orchard Hill for chicken bites and slushes would end with a stop at her house, where she would make chocolate milk and send us on our way. Even as we grew older, she stayed exactly the same.

Grammy was a devoted Catholic. She attended Mass most Sundays, but her truest ministry took place in her kitchen. One holiday was never enough. She opened her home for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter year after year. Easter visits began with egg hunts around the house, searching for eggs of specific colors filled with candy and, if we were lucky, the occasional dollar.

Christmas traditions started weeks earlier as the kids circled what they most wanted in the JCPenney catalog. We’d arrive at Grammy’s on Christmas Day and be greeted with decorations that felt as familiar as the dish of Werther’s Originals: the green porcelain Christmas tree, the train track circling the real tree, and soft teddy bears holding candy canes by the entryway to the living room. The kids introduced one another to their new toys while the adults shared stories, and if you were lucky, one of those stories would leave Grammy wiping tears from her eyes as she laughed.

The smells of the holidays outdid even the sights. Roasted turkey with green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and corn filled the air. Her banana cream pies, whoopie pies, cheesecakes, Italian cookies, and instinct for producing everyone’s favorite dessert at just the right moment were gifts she shared freely. Even on her own birthday, when we’d go to visit her, we’d find that she had already made a cake for herself.

Outside the holidays, she made incredible ravioli, pizza, chicken cutlets, and a simple salad that was as perfect as it was legendary. Even her oatmeal was something that could never quite be duplicated. To sit on Grammy’s couch while she cooked was to experience a peace that is hard to describe. The sounds, the smells, the certainty that something good was coming.

“Mangia, mangia,” she would say. Eat, eat. And we did.

Grammy was an architect. Her blueprints were sleepover weekends, summer visits, and holiday traditions. But what she built for us went far beyond any single visit or season. She filled us with food, with stories, with love, and with laughter. These were not small moments. They were the glue that kept us coming back, the threads that held us together. And even as years have passed and distance has grown, these memories remain, imprinted, shared, and waiting whenever we gather and remember.

She gave us a blueprint for love, and we will spend the rest of our lives trying to live up to it.

Visiting hours will be held Monday, February 9, in the Burns Funeral Home, 354 Boston Rd., (Rt. 3A), Billerica from 10:00 -12:00 PM. Relatives and friends invited.