Mrs. Cecilia V. D'Alessandro Cortese

St. Leonard’s Church

Boston, MA

February 19, 2010

by

Anthony D. Cortese

Fr. Antonio, Fr. Claude, Franciscan Friars of St. Leonard’s Church, members of the Cortese and D'Alessandro extended family and friends, I offer these thoughts on behalf of my brother, Nick, and sisters, Palma & Luci.

We are together this morning to honor, pay tribute to and to celebrate the life of Cecilia D’Alessandro Cortese, devoted wife, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, sister, aunt, cousin, friend and a member of St. Leonard’s Church for 89 years. She was baptized, received all the sacraments, was a member of the choir in her teens and 20’s where she met her husband and our late father, Nick Cortese, and was married here. She was a member of the Catholic Daughters and the Third Order of St. Francis and had a lifelong devotion to Saint Anthony, Saint Francis and the Blessed Mother. She attended Mass at St. Leonard’s every day of her adult life when she was in town and physically able.

She was born of then recent immigrant parents from Southern Italy and lived in the multi-family D’Alessandro house at 44 No. Bennet Street, above what was known as the “Saint Store” by long time North End residents. She lived there for 83 years including 59 married to our father, Nick, until they both entered a nursing home for the last years of their lives. While in later years she enjoyed the independence and the social rewards of office work for an insurance company and the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare, her whole life revolved around her family, St. Leonard’s Church, the North End and spending part of her summers with Dad in Buzzards Bay.

She was deeply devoted to and in love with Dad, who was her best friend and constant companion for their entire adult lives. They were the perfect match – yin and yang, two peas in a pod - and inseparable. From the beginning of motherhood, everything was about bringing us up right. I remember the day she took me by the hand, as she did all of us, to kindergarten at the Eliot School. I remember how she made sure we ate well and dressed well whenever we went to school or to church and how she and Dad always had something for all of us to do as a family on weekends – family gatherings, outings in the summer, church functions, etc. Of course there are the memories of how she managed the family’s social and religious life, financial matters, our educational direction through high school and instilled in us the importance of going to college to “make something of ourselves” as she and Dad put it. Mostly, she wanted to be sure that we would have the values of caring for family, friends and the communities in which we would live and that we treat other people with respect and dignity as she did.

Her leadership did not stop with the immediate family. She was part of an extended family of ten boys and girls and lived with her mother, father and her sister Helen. She was the principal cook and caregiver for her parents, sister Helen and us for over 50 years. She was truly the magnet for the extended D’Alessandro family, always checking in on her sisters and brothers and arranging family gatherings. She really got in gear for the holidays and special events like when we would get visits from her brother, Fr. Francis, from New York, or her uncle, Bishop Bernadine Mazzarella, from Honduras. Whenever they came to town the word went out through the family grapevine — just like Paul Revere — "Get ready! Fr. Francis or “The Bishop” is coming!" And we'd all scramble to have family gatherings or find other ways to see them.

She was a tireless and excellent cook. Today I look for and try to emulate (with mixed success) so many of her signature Italian dishes – from the pastas in all kinds of red sauces, pasta and greens, pasta fasule, homemade lasagna, ravioli, calamari, baccala – the list goes on. And then there were her cakes and cookies that were always around. The family joke was about how she would always burn the first batch of cookies – mostly because she would fall asleep in the living room taking one of her famous naps. When Uncle Frank, who lived upstairs with Aunt Laura and Cousin Fran, came home from his evening shift at the Gillette Company, he would smell the burnt cookies, stop by and eat some. Mother was thrilled that they wouldn’t go to waste. We were never sure whether he was being nice to her or he really liked burnt cookies!

Life was not easy for her, especially bringing up a family on one working class salary. She was always on the go and frequently took naps. I remember her ironing all our clothes, including underwear, socks and handkerchiefs – imagine. Often after dinner we would be sitting at the kitchen table (always the kitchen table as in all Italian families) having some fruit and she would put her elbows on the table to prop up her head and fall asleep. Dad and my brother, Nick, would tease her - Dad most often by tickling her nose with a napkin and Nick by untying her apron while she was asleep and tying it to the chair. When she awoke and tried to stand up she would be trying to take the chair with her. It was hilarious. Her typical reaction was to say “You’re rotten, lousy and no good”, or ‘RLNG” for short, and then would laugh at the whole incident. And these expressions stuck. One day at the Sancta Maria Nursing home when she was in the later stages of Alzheimer’s Disease I was trying to see if she remembered my or any of our immediate family’s names. She couldn’t until I said “RLNG” and she smiled broadly and said, clear as a bell, “I know what that is”!

As the 60’s came around she began to adapt to more American ways. Some were good and some didn’t work so well. There was the time in 1969 that I returned home from North Carolina and she had just bought an electric powered clothes dryer. No more hanging the clothes out on a rope that went from one angle of the building to the other three stories up from the ground. No more taking the clothes in during the winter that were frozen stiff – towels you could stand on end. We had gone modern!! Unfortunately, Mother didn’t know that you need to be careful about what type of clothes you put in a dryer. She put one of Dad’s favorite type of sweaters, a wool cardigan, in the dryer and it shrunk from a men’s size ‘small’ to a child’s size 6! Of course, we never let her live it down. She took the teasing in great stride, usually laughing at herself as much as we did. In fact, that was one of her most endearing traits – she never took herself too seriously.

Cecilia was an upbeat, caring, warm and generous person as all of my siblings, our cousin, Fran (who was like a third daughter to her), our other cousins and friends will tell you enthusiastically. She treated all of them as if they were immediate family. When I was in college I brought a friend, Dick Spencer, home for dinner. In those days penny loafers were the rage for shoes. When the soles of the loafers wore out, the solution was to take white medical adhesive tape and wrap it around the shoes. Dick had a pair of those on that day. After dinner and before we left she called me aside and said “Does the boy need a pair of shoes? Your father (who made shoes) can get him a pair.” To this day, he and I laugh about the incident. That was classic Cecilia – always looking to see if someone needed something and always making them feel special. That applied to all of her siblings, her parents, her nieces and nephews and to the priests at St. Leonard’s for whom she had a special affection. The door was always open to our house.

Mother did everything she could to preserve our Italian and religious culture. That was evident in her love for Italian folk and love songs and for religious hymns, like ‘Holy God, We Praise Thy Name’, ‘O Sanctissima’ and ‘Mother Dear, O Pray for Me’ which she loved to sing wherever she was. When her grandchildren came along she and Dad would babysit and teach them Italian phrases and songs, as well as about cooking and the family. They all had Italian nicknames – Gabriella was ‘Bella Bella”, John was “Giovanino”, Nick was “Nicolino” and Erik was “Eriche”. Of course, Mother and Dad could never get enough of their grandchildren who kept them young and happy through their later years. They loved to play with and tease each other. It was infectious.

By all accounts, Cecilia was one of the most beloved and happiest people we all knew. My siblings and I were extremely lucky to have her as our mother. She never drew attention to herself, always celebrated the good things that happened or were achieved by others and had only positive things to say about other people. Her life is a model for all of us to emulate.

To paraphrase the 1960’s movie, “To Sir, With Love”, how do you thank someone who has taken you from diapers to responsible adulthood? It isn’t easy but I’ll try: if she wanted us to, we would write across the sky in letters that would soar a thousand feet high: “To Cecilia, With Love”. Ma, we know you are at peace now and rejoined with Dad, the love of your life, singing and dancing and satisfied that you led a good life, you brought up a family that respected and loved you, served God and made a difference in the world. Ci vediamo, Ma!

OBITUARY

Cecilia (D’Alessandro) Cortese, 89, lifelong resident of Boston’s North End and part-time resident of Bourne since 1972. Beloved wife of the late Nicholas A. Cortese of the North End and devoted mother of Anthony Cortese and his wife Donna DiGioia of Cambridge, Palma Cortese of Norwell, Lucille Prawdzik and her husband David of Andover, and Nicholas A. Cortese, Jr. and his wife Christine of Milton. Beloved sister of Mary Earnest of Cocoa, FL, Lucy Rutzke of Watertown and of the late Laura Ingeme of Arlington and Helen D’Alessandro of the North End. Beloved sister of Phillip D’Alessandro of the North End, Joseph D’Alessandro of Arlington, VA, Anthony D’Alessandro of the North End, Vincent D’Alessandro of Cambridge and Rev. Fr. Francis X. D’Alessandro of New York. Loving grandmother of John Milner of Madison, WI, Erik Milner of South Elgin, IL, Gabriella and John Prawdzik of Andover, Nicholas A. Cortese, III of Milton and great grandmother of Adeline Milner of Madison, WI. She was a lifelong parishioner of St. Leonard’s Church, a member of the choir in her youth and a member of the Catholic Daughters and the Third Order of St. Francis. Funeral from the Boston Harborside Home of JS Waterman & Sons-Langone, 580 Commercial St, BOSTON on Friday, Feb. 19th at 8:45AM followed by a funeral mass to be celebrated at 9:45am in St. Leonard Church, Hanover St, Boston. The family will be receiving relatives and friends on Thursday from 4-9 pm. Services will conclude with interment in Massachusetts National Cemetery, Bourne. In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to St. Leonard’s Church, 14 North Bennet Street, Boston, MA 02113 or the Alzheimer’s Association, MA/NH chapter, 311 Arsenal St., Watertown, MA 02472.