Mary Phyllis Sicilia

Mary Phyllis “Candy” Sicilia, 86, of Alexandria, Virginia, died peacefully on Sunday, September 6, 2026, surrounded by the family she loved so completely throughout her life.

Candy was born September 1, 1940, in Jamaica, New York. Candy was the second of six children born to Peter “Pete” Sicilia and Agatha “Aggie” DeFilippo Sicilia. She began life as a city girl in a close-knit Italian-American family before her parents made an extraordinary change in their own lives, leaving New York for a 100-acre dairy farm in Creagerstown, Maryland.

She grew up on the farm, and met Ronald Rasmus while he was stationed in the Catoctin Mountain area working as a radio engineer for the United States Army. They met at a dance, fell in love and married.

Together they had three children: Christopher, Patricia (Trisha) and Kathleen.

The young family settled in the Washington, D.C. area. Candy devoted herself to her children, and when her marriage eventually ended, she became the steady center of their home and family.

At different stages of her life she worked as an upholsterer, operated a used-office-furniture business with her daughter Trisha, and ultimately joined her son Christopher at Rasmus Auctions as their accountant.

Without formal accounting training, she became a highly capable bookkeeper, combining an aptitude for numbers with extraordinary attention to detail and, above all, unquestioned honesty. Candy never retired, and continued working until only months before her death.

She had many hobbies throughout her life including cooking, traveling, sewing and whistling. She was naturally kind, affectionate and loving. Candy was outspoken, wonderfully unfiltered and very funny—sometimes without realizing quite how funny she was. She generally said what she thought, and those closest to her knew there was very little pretense about her.

She could be gracious and almost disarmingly sweet. Yet life required her to become strong. When circumstances changed unexpectedly, she did not fold. She adjusted, she persevered, and underneath that gentleness was an unmistakably strong woman.

Family was the center of Candy’s world, and she possessed something not everyone is fortunate enough to experience: a family that not only loved one another but genuinely enjoyed one another.

She was loved just as deeply in return, and will be greatly missed.

She is survived by her children Christopher (Susan) Rasmus and Kathleen (Ron) Rodimak; her grandchildren Ryen (Nathan) Brown, Patrick (Allison) Rasmus, Marie (David) Murphy, Jay (Michelle) Jarvis, and Erik Rasmus and seven great-grandchildren; her five brothers and sisters and their families, Dolores “Cookie” Fitzgerald, Guy Thomas “Tommy” Sicilia, Cecelia “Kiki” Bussey, Dominic Sicilia and Peter “Petey” Sicilia; and a large extended Sicilia and Rasmus family whose lives have been intertwined with hers across generations.

She was preceded in death by her beloved daughter, Patricia “Trisha” Rasmus.

Visitation will be held at Stauffer’s Funeral Home, 104 E Main St, Thurmont, MD 21788 from 6-8 p.m. on Friday, September 25. Funeral mass will be held at the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, 16330 Grotto Rd, Emmitsburg, MD 21727 at 10 a.m. on Saturday, September 26, with interment and a reception to follow.