BELCHERTOWN,MA. Felicia Lena (Giancola) Stanton, of 196 Franklin St, Belchertown, passed away peacefully at her home on July 17th, 2024. She was 83 years old. Felicia was born in Brooklyn, NY on December 4th, 1940, to parents Marie Agnes (Bohack) Giancola, and James Felix Giancola. She and her family moved to Long Island in 1951, and six years later, she happened to look out the window and see her future husband moving into the house next door. It was love at first sight. Not too soon after, they made a failed attempt to elope when she was 17 and he was 15, but they were undeterred and eventually married on November 15th, 1959.

She received her degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst when she was thirty six years old. She made being a mother a priority and put her own education aside until her children were older. Though she considered a career in social work, she ended up focusing instead on her creative passion for art. She was an amazing artist, concentrating predominantly in watercolor painting, and she realized that becoming a teacher would be the path she would follow in order to share her gift. She earned her teaching credentials and went on to pass along that passion to her young students at Windy Hill elementary School in Jacksonville, Fl, where she taught for more than a decade, and where she won Teacher of the Year honors in 1989. She retired from teaching in 2002, and when her husband retired in 2007, they returned to Massachusetts for good. 

All that being said, none of it manages to capture the essence of who Felicia was. She somehow managed to become a trusted confidant to all those who knew her. She would listen intently without interrupting, and then offer guidance and advice in such a gentle way that her words alone made those she comforted feel immediately better. She will be remembered as a bright, talented, caring person who managed to make everyone she touched feel loved and special. She was our Maw. She was deeply loved. And she will be greatly missed by all who knew her.

Felicia leaves behind her husband, Robert Stanton, her sister Marie (Giancola) Doyle and her husband, Peter Doyle, her son, Bobby Stanton, of Holyoke, her daughter-in-law, Meredith (Greaney) Stanton, her daughter Sharon (Stanton) and son-in-law David Krock, and her grandchildren, Charlie and Sammy Stanton. 

Funeral Services will be at the convenience of the family.

Donations in Felicia’s memory can be made to Dakin Humane Society at www.dakinhumane.org

Memorial guestbook at www.douglassfuneral.com