July 22, 1934 – July 5, 2026
Mary Louise DeAvilla(Machado) was born July 22nd 1934 in a small home on a dirt road named after her father, Frank Machado. Growing up a Machado on Machado Lane meant understanding how to cultivate family legacy, and she gave us the kind of childhoods you’ve read about in storybooks.
She had three older brothers: Tony, Frank, and Louie. Her cousin, Mary Silva, also grew up with her as an adopted sibling when Mary Silva (Theodore) came to live with the Machados as a child. She also had an older sister with the same name that died before she was born. Though we didn’t know the other Mary Louise Machado, we’d like to think she brought enough honor to the name for both of them.
As the only girl, she was given the nick-names Sis and Sister. Her brothers once convinced her to bury her penny purse in the yard. But instead of a money tree, they helped her grow a sense of humor and humility.
As a child she split time between the U.S. and the Azores and ended up with an extra year of high school because her transcripts weren’t accepted from abroad. However, she impressed her teachers as a hard working student and graduated in 1953 from Yreka High School where she met her future husband. She attended Healds Business College with her friend Joan Silva (Beck) and then married Richard “Dick” DeAvilla on January 29th 1955. She and Dick had four children: Lisa, Rick, Brenda, and Denise.
Mary wasn’t a complainer, she was a doer. She volunteered at the Big Springs Community Club and organized the parade for the Hawkinsville Holy Ghost “Portuguese Picnic” Festival for over thirty years. She was a 4-H leader at the Big Springs club. She was an inspector for the Mayten Big Springs precinct.
If her husband had an idea, Mary would make it happen. She organized what should have been a chaotic, multi-family annual Beaver Creek Camp into a well-oiled event. She deeply believed in the value and importance of family traditions and took over Grandma Freda’s Sunday dinners. Every weekend our entire family would gather for a huge home-cooked meal, often featuring enough roast beef with potatoes and gravy or lasagna to feed 20-30 people. Guests were always welcome at her table and up at camp. And we always had dessert, but the real treat at the end of each meal was sitting for hours at the table talking, playing cards, or trading jokes and stories.
Mary was also known as The Cake Lady, not just because she made amazing desserts, but because people would drop off their sheet cakes at her house for the Big Springs Community Siskiyou County fair food booth. You could find her volunteering in the booth at every fair.
And we know everyone swears by their mother or grandmother’s cooking, but did yours bake a cake that would go for as high as $1,200 at local fundraisers? Mary’s German chocolate cake was so special it was almost always saved to auction last.
Mary ran an unofficial daycare out of her home and considered the Noble girls, Waters boys, and Tillinghasts as her own grandchildren. She loved children, and she entertained generations of babies. She could stop a toddler (or teenager) tantrum with a smile or laugh and assisted in many births, human and animal. Mary once said if she could have been anything else, she would have been a nurse. We witnessed her heal just about everything with lemon, a Flintstone’s vitamin, pep talk, prayer, or Ovaltine.
Mary’s friendships taught us that love between friends and family isn’t just precious, but invaluable. Some people might not know this, but Mary was a jokester. She reveled in catching people in an April Fool’s joke, but she rarely fell for any of it in return. She had a partner in crime, Linda Ayers, her best friend. We all witnessed many days of laughter with those two trading jokes and barbs at her table along with her brother and lifelong best friend, Louie Machado.
Aside from serving on scholarship and Hawkinsville Hall boards, she spoke two languages fluently. Though she was born in the U.S., her parents were born in the Azores. As the first generation to immigrant parents, she would translate for visiting family.
There is a word in Portuguese without an English equivalent: Saudade. It roughly means a deep longing and nostalgia for a person, place, or thing you once knew or wish you knew. Mary would tell us stories about the Azores that made us all feel like we’d been there. She would tell stories of traditional food and how she couldn’t quite get the taste or texture exactly the way it was when she was younger, and how certain foods would remind her of that time. She inspired a longing in all of us to visit the Azores.
When asked if she could travel anywhere in the world she would often say ‘home.’ When asked to explain her answer she would say she didn’t want to go anywhere unless her family was there.
Mary was deeply spiritual. Her world was filled with miracles and she believed loved ones would send her messages. When her mother died she would see signs of her in small everyday things. In the way we had saudade for the Azores she had the same for the world she knew.
Some say there are Catholics strong enough to pray for snow in July and get it. Mary was that kind of Catholic. We believe she could will herself to be on heaven and Earth at the same time. We believe she could resist death so many times because she loved us too much to leave. We believe there are signs she will give us she is still here. And we believe she made our childhood memories so special that they would be strong enough to carry us through when she forgot.
Mary Louise DeAvilla joined her parents Frank and Adelaide, two older brothers Tony Machado and Frank Machado, her sister Mary, two of her grandchildren Morgan Sisk and Lola DeAvilla, and husband Dick DeAvilla on July 5th 2026. Waiting for her to send us all a sign she’s busy cooking in heaven are her brother Louie Machado and her children Lisa (Joe) Faris, Rick (Mary) DeAvilla, Brenda (Joe) Sisk, and Denise Smith. And her grandchildren: Amy (Dave) Dunlap, Tina (Tyler) Smith, Delilah DeAvilla, David (Aja) Faris, Joey (Jenna) Faris, Megan (Alex) Moseley, and Emily Smith. And her great-grandchildren: Derek, Frances, Brooklynn, Dylan, Isaac, Carmine, Ella, Lola, Sky, Ezekiel, Kolter, Kanyon, and Savannah.
In lieu of flowers please send donations to some of the places our mother and grandmother was passionate about such as Hawkinsville Hall Association, Mayten Fire Department, the local 4-H, Saint Jude’s Children’s Hospital, and the Madrone Hospice House in Yreka.
A rosary will be held at 10:30am and a funeral mass will follow at 11:00am to honor the life of Mary Louise DeAvilla on Saturday July 25th at Saint Joseph Catholic Church located at 314 Fourth Street in Yreka. A memorial gathering for family and friends will follow after the mass.
Girdner Funeral Chapel is assisting the family.
Sourced from Girdner Funeral Chapel
