by Maryrose Scott

My grandmother Rosina Maria Marrapese also known as Rose Marie Marrapese Angelico was born in Rochester, Monroe County, New York to Mary Musto Marrapese and Pasquale Marrapese on a hot summer day August 17, 1915. My grandfather was an immigrant from Napoli, Italy. They had the normal Italian life, loads of love, homemade wine, church on Sunday and the big Italian dinner too! No one can make sauce and meatballs or the homade salad dressing, and homemades like my gram!

The stories she used to tell me when I was a child of the homemade shoes and hand me downs of the family, working when she was young, the rides to farm where they used to pick beans and peas, riding to work on the horse drawn carriage, the cold winter nights when they had to burn coal to keep warm. All those stories I will never forget, were not just stories they were lessons for life.

She was 18 years old when she met the love of her life Anthony Joseph Angelico/Angeliccio originally, he was born in 1933 in Chicago his parents came from Muro Lucano, Italy. He worked as fireman/engineer for the Santa Fe Railroad. My grandmother was 18 years old when they were married. They met married and she was asked to move away from her parents. They bought a small house in Los Angeles, Compton, California, which was a run down old gas station.

My grandmother could make any place a home. Their first furniture was made from orange crates she collected; she made her own curtains and her own clothes, having worked and the Hickey Freeman Company where most of the family worked. That is what she did in the neighborhood odd jobs darning socks, making shirts and dresses for people. Later down the line she had a son Anthony Joseph Angelico Jr, then Robert Angelico, waited a few years then had my mother Kathleen Rose Angelico. Grampa didn't want to have any children he too grew up in a big Italian family, after the kids came he was happy to have them.

They save enough money to move to their own house in Compton California. Where she still made her own curtains, their children grew older, the family dinners grew bigger and everyone was at my grandmother's house for Sunday dinner. When the family grew she made most of the wedding dresses and bridesmaid dresses for everyone, including my mother.

Grandpa got sick with tuberculosis, he was then out of work. My grandmother worked hard to keep up the house, take of the children and still managed to make those dinners as well as save money for my grandpa to go to Arizona and other mountain resorts to keep up his health. The family from Rochester would come every year to visit, we never lost touch. Unfortunately he lost his fight with the tuberculosis in 1965.

Gram was devastated he was the only man for her. After that she got herself together, packing us up and we all moved home to Rochester New York, down the street from Aunt Olympia, who we called Aunt Lee and her daughter Dee, who I affectionately call Aunt Dee and her son David Calabria. We had many more dinners. I got to meet the rest of the family, being shy they all scooped me up and made me feel at home. We met at Babe's house. Since then we have all gone our separate ways for the most part and there are no more family Sunday dinners with all the family, until recently at the Marrapese Family Reunion which my uncle Dan Vitale and cousin Lori Bonnadonna Culiffe put together.

I happened to have missed that event due to health concerns, which led me to try to honor my grandmother in some other special way. She is the most amazing woman full of strength through her many losses, her parents, husband and many of her brother and sisters. There is only one sister left besides my grandmother and that is my Aunt Jojo aka Josepine Marrapese Agresti. Gram is the sweetest put strongest person I have ever met, she has been there for me always as well as others. You can tell by the turn out at the party that she is truly loved and everyone has the fondest of memories with her,now they have one more the 100th birthday celebration.

My grandmother was more of a mother to me than a grandmother, she raised me for the most part her daughter was very and died in 2008. She was always there to fix the many bruises, bumps, scratches and kiss them all away. She also taught me how to make "The Sauce" the bronchiole, gnocchi, ravioli, wandies, the goodies for holidays the oh so good cucciadati fig cookies for Christmas. More than that she taught me the old recipes that we call Past & Peas and Broccoli & Macaroni for our meatless Fridays, the old Catholic tradition. Nothing was better than to wake up and smell the meatballs cooking in the kitchen and grabbing some Italian bread to dip your bread into.

Mostly I will never forget her singing to me, on holidays in the car or while she was cooking playing Mario Lanzo on the record player. She had one special song she would sing to wake me up Lazy Mary by Lou Monte she would sing it Italian and then in English. I will never forget her laughing with her sisters in the kitchen when they would play cards, speaking in Italian when they didn't want the kids to know what they were saying. We all had some great times with my gram. There are so many great memories we all have of her in our hearts. I miss all of the aunties and uncles that have passed, I also know that one day we will all be together again making sauce and ravioli! I love my grandmother who left me with her stories of her growing up all that she has seen and giving me all of the tools to face anything that life has to give me, hopefully handling it all with the grace she has. Happy 100th Birthday Gram!

Thank you to We The Italians for helping me share you with world. You are one in a million!

Love You To the Moon and Back!