Emma Covelli supported her family by making things that roll off the tongue like music: rigatoni, cavatelli, pastina, tortellini, capellini, ziti, linguine, rotini, farfalle and mostaccioli. A longtime employee at Cicero Macaroni Company, she died Dec. 26 at 100.

Asked for the key to her longevity, her son Luigi said, “Her secret was olive oil.” She was already over 50 when she came to America in 1968, a widow whose husband had died in an accident while hunting the wild boar and rabbits of the province of Cosenza in the southern Italian region of Calabria.