Camille Silliman Obituary

How does one describe the pain of losing a fine, loving and cherished daughter? The unexpected death of our only child in late March left such a deep and unbearable hole in our hearts that the mere remembrance brings even more pain.

Camille’s birth on April 21, 1987 in Upland brought so much joy. She added a new dimension, a deeper and wider breadth to our lives. She was easy to raise; she never gave us the experience of a “terrible” age. When she was at the touch-everything stage, we didn’t put precious things away because she accepted the explanation to be careful with things that were important to Dad and Mom. She went everywhere with us, traveling internationally by fourteen months old.

At two, Camille attended preschool at the Mary B. Eyre Children’s School. Annually, Sid and Camille took father/daughter trips to visit special museums and to ski. Camille was Dad’s Pal. Later, she attended Upland High School, where she excelled in academics and music. She was an excellent baritone saxophone player. In addition, she played classical acoustic guitar. While studying at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts, the eldest of the Ivy League Seven Sisters, she was selected to perform with the UMass, Amherst, Jazz Ensemble as well as with Mt. Holyoke’s own jazz band. She hosted a radio program with a jazz focus. Before graduating cum laude from Mt. Holyoke in 2009, she studied at the Bryn Mawr Institute D’Etudes Francaises in Avignon, France, and spent a summer doing research at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

She was very happy and excited to join the Public Defender’s Office in Wausau after graduating from the University of Wisconsin Law School. She made close friends, liked her job and colleagues and was acclimating to Central Wisconsin and its seasons.

Now, she is gone from our midst, a promising life cut too short. We are bereft and devastated. Our old age stretches before us barren, bleak, forlorn, a wasteland. Oh, Camille, why did you leave so early? It hurts so much, Sweetie, and the pain will never go away. Rest in peace, precious daughter, and go with our abiding love.

Camille is survived by her parents, G. Sidney Silliman and Rachel Gadiane Silliman. She was an attorney in the struggle to protect “justice for all.” In lieu of flowers, donating to research on Sjogren’s Syndrome at Mayo Clinic or to Project Sister is appreciated.