Christine Anne LaFalce

Christine Anne “Chris” LaFalce (nee Brown) age 69 of Orlando passed away on April 14, 2014. She was born on September 18, 1944 in Newark, NJ, the youngest of three children of Raymond and Harriet Brown (nee Bruce) of Belleville, NJ.

She was a 1962 graduate of Belleville High School (NJ). Chris married the love of her life Patrick R. “Pat” LaFalce on March 8, 1964 at St. Francis Xavier R. C. Church in Newark, NJ. They were happily married for 37 years when Pat unexpectedly died from complications following surgery on February 7, 2002.

After having two children, Chris decided to return to school. With help and support from Pat, she juggled things at home as well as part-time work with college studies. She earned her B.S. degree in Business Administration from William Paterson University (NJ) in 1982.

She went on to work for AT&T in NJ and later relocated with them to Orlando in 1989. Pat and Chris purchased a lakefront home in the Orange Tree community when it was first developed. After retiring from AT&T in 1997, Chris worked for FedEx in their Maitland office as Manager of Systems Design & Development in the Revenue Systems Engineering group. She retired from FedEx in 2002.

Chris had many hobbies and was an avid genealogist, researching the history of her family (Brown) back to the American Revolution as well as the LaFalce family who were Italian immigrants back to Bucino, Italy. She and Pat even traveled to Bucino where they were welcomed as “long lost cousins”.

The Brown family had a love of sports cars and Chris had a number of special cars through the years including a Mercury Cougar XR7, Mitsubishi Starion, and two Nissan “Z’s”.

Throughout the years Chris remained in touch with friends from New Jersey. For years she went on an annual vacation with her NJ girlfriends. She also kept up with her high school classmates (Belleville Class of “62) through Facebook and went to a number of reunions in New Jersey.

Mostly, Chris will be remembered as an animal lover. She had a variety of pets through the years—dogs, cats, birds, a ferret. She never met an animal she didn’t like and nothing warmed her heart like a furry friend.

She is survived by her two children and their families – Kathryn (Kathy) Adams (Brad) of Ocoee, FL and Nicholas (Nick) LaFalce (Marla) of Orlando and her five grandchildren – Crista, Jolyn, Ryan and Corbin Adams and Nicholas (Jr) LaFalce. She also leaves behind her brother James T. Brown, Sr. (Patricia) of Frenchtown, NJ and her sister-in-law Sandra LaFalce Palumbo (Vincent) of Livingston, NJ as well as a niece and two nephews.

The family has requested in lieu of flowers donations in her memory to the SPCA of Central Florida (orlandopets.org).

Funeral arrangements are being handled by Woodlawn Memorial Funeral Home in Gotha.