Domenica "Sandi" Aveni Madison

Domenica Aveni was born on June 6, 1942 during WWII, while her father, Giuseppe was serving in the Italian Army. Her mother, Vincenza was alone, in their house, in the small Sicilian village of Tripi, Italy, initially founded by the Greeks. From the beginning, school teachers told her parents she was a very smart student. But the custom at the time, was for girls to marry and raise a family. When she was 16, she went to live with one of her many aunts in a town one hour away, where she attended a sewing apprenticeship for one year.

Her father was the local farmer's carpenter. This meant that for most part, he got paid once a year usually after the crops were harvested and sold. To survive, the family had to make their money last until the following year. A lesson all family members learned well.

When she was 17, the family was trying to come to America. To be with her father's brother who lived in Boston. Her Uncle even wrote a young Senator, John F. Kennedy asking for assistance. Finally in April 1960 her parents, and her two younger brothers, traveled by ship to America. Then by train to Sunnyvale, where her Uncle had moved to. At this time, no one in her family spoke English! Her youngest brother Vince was the first one to pick up the ability to speak English and helped to translate for the family.

In the beginning , to make ends meet, they took on any job available to them. As a family they picked apricots, even having to bring 10 year old Vince to the fields, and packing him into a apricot crate with blankets to keep him warm. Domenica and her mom worked in the cannery, at the mixed fruit packing line, where putting fruit into cans meant cut fingers and stinging from the fruit's acidity ph.

Eventually she started sewing for people, like making dresses without patterns, pants alterations and getting jobs sewing for clothing stores and a Palo Alto fur store. At the fur shop, she meet her life long friend Josephine. She also showed her creativity by copying Jackie Kennedy's pink hat, which sold like crazy.

For the first two years, due to her parents limited English, she had the most consistent income in the family. She gave every check she got to her parents to help with rent and food. When looking for a place to rent, they were blessed when they found an apartment on Bryan Ave. owned by Italians and who became life long friends the Barbieri family.

By now she started calling herself "Sandi", taken from watching the Sandra Dee movies. She also started taking English classes, and studying for her American citizenship. During the summer, her younger brother Vince would wait for her at the bus stop. In the winter he would attend the classes with her, so she did not have to walk home alone in the dark. During this time of struggle of learning English and earning an income, her father wanted to return to Italy, but her mother said "no". It was because of this struggle the family bond was reinforced and never wavered for each other.

In the mid sixties, Hewlett-Packard was growing and hiring, as a result of the Vietnam War. The company offered a free "how to become an electronic assembler class" and hired only the best from this introduction class. In this class she met her life long friend Pat. From the beginning at HP and for the next 28 years, her work evaluations comments said "consistently very high work volume with the highest quality". As an innocent and naive girl, she had many pranks, played on her: like, go over to the next assembly line and ask for a left hand screwdriver, however, she wised up quickly and soon became the top assembler in her division.

With the job at HP and her parents now having consistent jobs, she started keeping only half her pay for herself, allowing her to buy a car. She became the family chauffeur, driving her father to work in Redwood City, until he was able to buy his own car. She told a story about one day coming back, from Redwood City and being sleepy. She stopped behind a car and did not move for 15 minutes until she realized the car was a parked car. With her car, she took her parents, more then once, to Reno to see top entertainers, and her brothers to Disneyland. She was fearless, never scared to drive or travel anywhere, even at times when the car would break down.

In the late 60s and early 70s she had met her life long friends, Natalie and Jeanine at the Italian Federation. They traveled together to Reno, Hawaii and South America. Her favorite picture was taken by Jeanine on one of these trips.

Knowing how difficult it was when they first came to America, they would reach out and help their cousins, like Nino & Josephine Arcoraci, and their kids, Rosemary and Robert, they would pick them up for the weekend and having them stay at their house.

Sandi would say her most stressful time was when her brother Tony returned from the Army in 1973 with an injury, requiring time at the VA hospital. She would translate the doctors' comments to her parents. Sometime not telling her parents just how bad it could be. At the same time, she had saved enough money to buy a house, which she had to sign "Domenica Aveni, a SINGLE woman". Some of the local older male Italians were telling her father, "who does your daughter think she is, driving a car and buying her own house, being single". She had pressure to get married, even being dragged to Vancouver Canada to meet a possible husband, but she was picky, and said "NO, he is too short"!

Soon after, in 1974 her brother Tony married Rosa, and rented Sandi's house, which they later purchased. Her life changed with her first niece Enza and she became a Zia (Italian for Aunt). She would chose to spend all her overtime check on buying and making clothes for Enza. She would kidnap her every chance she could. One time while at a bank, cashing a check, Enza saw a "Wanted for Bank Robbery" picture, and said "Zia, look there is the guy you are dating", causing a bank manger to walk over and ask Sandi do you know this guy? She hurried out of the bank, and stopped dating the guy!

3 years later came Tony & Rosa second daughter Marilena. Their Zia Sandi would make look alike outfits for both girls. 2 years later Sandi met Joe, who became her husband. When asked why him, she answered, "he is tall, nice, and he understands and accepts my Aveni family which is everything to me". Almost 9 months to the day of her wedding, Tony's & Rosa's third daughter, Gina, was born. For the next 10 years Sandi and Joe chose to kidnap her nieces every chance they could, spending time with them, taking them to Reno, Disneyland and San Diego, and go on family cruises.

But, the nieces grew up. First to get married was Marilena to Rick, they now have 5 kids, Elliott, Wesley, Romeo, Drake, and finally a girl Valentina. Next to marry was Enza to Jerry, having a girl, Makenna and a boy,Isaiah, and then Gina married Jason, having 2 boys, Dylan and Hendrix.

By now Vince had married Irina and Zia Sandi got her fourth niece Joya.

From 1999 to early 2001, Sandi helped her mom care for her father until he died. In 2006, after Joe's retirement, they traveled to Italy. The first 2 weeks they toured Italy, then spent 2 weeks in her village of Tripi, Sicily. You can see in the pictures how happy she was. When touring the Vatican Sandi crossed over the red ropes, and went up to a 800 AD map of Italy, and was pointing and saying Look, here is Tripi, at the same time Joe is saying get back over the ropes, before we get arrested!!

In October of 2006, Sandi met the love of her life, and sleeping partner. She adopted her four legged son, a King Charles Cavalier, named Angel. Her husband Joe has said many times, if she had to choose to save Joe or Angel, Joe would lose.

Sandi loved to sew and cook. From the pictures you can see some of the kid's bathrobes she made for her niece's children. She was a GREAT Italian cook. From the pictures you can see by how big Joe has became.

Sandi and her brothers with help from Lilly, and her son Angel, were caregivers, until their mother passed on October 24, 2012. Then 3 months later her 3 year health battle started with her kidney stones causing bladder infection. She was on antibiotics for too long, which started the thymus gland producing a protein that attacked her muscles, a condition called Myasthenia Gravis. Her immunity was lowered due to the MG medications, which allowed the cancer to start in the liver, then later, another MG medicine fueled the lymphoma tumor growth.

Sandi will be missed. She was fearless and the family's protector. She never hesitate if any family member or life long friend needed help. She has left a big hole in all of our hearts.

Services start at 11am Dec.19, at Lima Family Mortuary, 466 N. Winchester Blvd., Santa Clara, 95050. Burial service will follow across the street at Santa Clara Mission Cemetery. In her memory, please do a random act of kindness to another person, as she has done many times.