Maria Grimaldi Zagami

Our Most Merciful Lord loaned us Maria eighty years ago and on 4 September 2013 He took her back. Maria Grimaldi-Zagami was born in Giampilieri, a suburb of Messina, Sicily on 2 May 1933. Shortly thereafter she moved with her family to Asmara, Ethiopia/Eritrea to join her Italian army officer father. In 1942 she returned to Giampilieri. There, when only 10 years old she met 12 years old USA born Frank Zagami a neighbor and new schoolmate. Maria and Frank fell in love within a few years and became officially engaged in 1949. She agreed to wait for Frank after he volunteered to join the US Army at the outbreak of the Korean War. On Aug 13 1951, at the age of eighteen, Maria married twenty years old Frank in the same church they had attended as they were growing up. She accompanied Frank to his first overseas posting, Linz, Austria. Subsequently, sustained by her strong Christian faith and her great love and dedication for her husband, she endured the hardships of a US Army wife for twenty years raising two children while living in a variety of locations in the US and Europe. Maria had resided on Jekyll Island since 1981 and was a parishioner at St Francis Xavier Catholic Church, Jekyll Island. Maria was a devout Catholic and in her heart the Holy Mother held a special place. Maria found a way to recognize the beauty of God’s creation in everyone she met. She was loved and admired by all who knew her. She is survived by her husband Frank of Jekyll Island, her son Nick and daughter in-law Sherri, Pikesville Maryland, her daughter Carmen, Brunswick, grandson Kristopher, Savannah, and granddaughter Samantha, Brunswick, a sister, three nephews and three nieces in Italy. A funeral mass will be celebrated at 11AM, Monday, September 9, 2013 at Jekyll United Methodist Church, with Father Wilfrid Logsdon officiating. In lieu of flowers memorial donations may be made to the St. Vincent De Paul Society, 12 17 Newcastle St, Brunswick, GA 31520 and to the Hospice of the Golden Isles, 1692 Glynco Parkway, Brunswick GA, 31525