Marie-Claire Baptista

Marie-Claire Baptista died in Orlando on August 25, 2026. She was 77. Born in Orlando on February 3, 1949, into a Haitian-American household that treated work as a language. She learned early that a day is something you finish, not something you wait for. She ran floors that never slept. A checklist in two languages kept standards; she taught that a made bed is a small mercy. Colleagues still mention a cart checklist in two languages. She married Jean in 1974. They kept a house that stayed modest when the neighborhood did not. They raised a son through public schools and ordinary weather. After Jean died in 2019, she kept the routines that still made sense: the walk, the garden, the Sunday call. Neighbors remember a rake leaned against a shared fence after a storm. She liked early mornings before the heat or the noise. She died in Orlando, among streets she never needed to explain. The tools are still hung where a hand can find them in the dark.