The William and Paula Kiliany Memorial Fund

The William and Paula Kiliany Memorial Fund will share their passion for skiing with those who face economic or physical challenges that may make it seem impossible to participate in skiing.  It will also support programs making freedom possible for those who have been challenged with addiction to alcohol. 

Background provided by their niece, Cathie Henry Rosado:   

Uncle Bill and Aunt Paula lived out a strong work ethic and commitment to their employer with very long careers at Bell Atlantic which later became Verizon.  They invested well and were able to retire early.  They introduced me to the finer things of life, and I smile as I remember them inviting me to try caviar for the first time.  Bill enjoyed photography and captured the closeness of family when individuals from multiple states came together at Thanksgiving.  Paula was always in charge of the story at the Thanksgiving table, and their vacations skiing in the Alps, basking in the sun in the Galapagos Islands, or glamorous camping on a safari in Africa provided ample material for the most amazing and often very humorous stories.  Their old passports evidence a full and exciting life.

From my book, Choosing Plan A: “When I was 38, my mother’s older brother passed away at the relatively young age of 65. My uncle was someone I admired. He had been a very successful businessman. He had been active and healthy. He would ski mountains I would never even consider tackling in my wildest dreams. Less than a year before his death, his doctor described his heart as that of a person considerably younger, yet here he was in a casket. My son, Joshua, was just a few months old when I last saw my uncle in hospice, barely recognizable as the man I had remembered. Realistically, my uncle should have lived to see Joshua graduate from college. My uncle did not have any children and had enjoyed a very comfortable lifestyle and lavish vacations. In his final months, he stopped eating and resorted to consuming little more than alcohol. Part of me wonders if at the root of his death was giving up on life. Was he struggling to see that his life had mattered for anything beyond himself? Did he not see a legacy that would live on beyond him? His death gave me a lot to think about.” 

As Paula battled health issues brought on by years of smoking, she turned increasingly to alcohol consumption.  It felt like once again I was watching someone giving up on life.  As I sat at her bedside in hospice, I knew that it was time to start something that would be a positive legacy for them. 

Over the fourteen years after Bill passed, I found my passion for endowed philanthropy, and it seems appropriate to honor their lives with a fund that combines giving others access to the activity that brought them some of their greatest adventures and combats the thing that cut their adventuring short.