Nicolina Nellie Geraldine La Giglia Emmi

Thank you for coming. We are here tonight to say our farewells to my mother, Nicolina or Nellie Emmi as most of us knew her by. My mother passed away on January 21st, my Dad’s birthday. I would like to tell you about my mom and the extraordinary life that she led.

But first, I would like to thank her friends and neighbors who looked out for her and helped her when she needed assistance these last couple of years. My mom told me how much she appreciated your kindness and helpfulness when she asked a favor. I want to specially thank Edna De Leva, my mom’s wonderful next door neighbor. Mom said that without Edna’s help she would not have been able to continue to live in her own home the last year of her life. She said she would be eternally grateful for all the help Edna provided to her. Finally, I want to thank my beautiful wife Bambi whose help has been immeasurable. From the moment we heard my mom needed to go into the hospital for a test until my mom’s final moment Bambi was there advocating for her, taking care of her and comforting her. The gratitude I have for Bambi is beyond measure. I could not have made it through this ordeal without her.

Nellie was born in New York City, on January 5, 1928. She was the eldest of three children and is survived by her sister Angie who is here with us tonight and by her brother Nick. During the Great Depression the family lived in a humble apartment in a poor neighborhood. When she was about age twelve they moved to an apartment in the newly constructed government projects. My mother always said that she felt like she had died and gone to heaven when they moved there and that she loved that apartment and the fabulous view they had of the East River.

My mom dreamed of becoming a dress designer. In pursuit of that goal she attended Washington Irving High School, an all-girls school in those days, where she took specialty classes in dressmaking. After her high school graduation, she got a job working in a garment factory. She loved that job. She and her cousin Josephine worked for the chief designer. The designer would make sketches of dresses and then pin fabric on to a dress maker’s dummy to finalize her creations. My mom and Jo would then create the first prototype dress from the sketches and the pin up. Later, that dress would be taken apart and used to make the pattern for all of the dresses that would be mass produced. This training is what helped my mom become such a skilled seamstress.

One summer my mom went to Rochester to visit her cousin. There she heard that her cousin had another cousin named Mazi visiting from California. She was told that Mazi was out for the evening, but would return later. She was curious to meet this woman from California. Late that night the boys snuck back into the house. My mom and her cousin were already in bed when the group of young men snuck through the girl’s room in their boxer shorts on their way to their room. The girls spied on them and giggled while pretending to sleep. In the morning mom met Mazi, who wasn’t a woman at all, but a man named Thomas, one of the young men in boxer shorts that night. His nickname was Mazi (short for Tomaso). Mom teased Tom and his cousin buddies about seeing them sneak through their room in their boxer shorts and everyone had a good laugh. This unexpected encounter changed the vector of my mom’s life. Instead of becoming a dress designer she fell in love with Tom and at age 20 they were married in 1948 and mom moved to California to start a whole new life.

I came around in 1950. In 1953 Nellie and Tom bought a brand new home in the newly developing community of Downey. After the re-construction of the Rio Hondo River and the straightening of the river leaving their neighborhood encircled by both the “old” river and the new river the area became known as the Island. Mom, Dad and I were now Islanders. My mom who, as she would say, couldn’t even boil water when she got married, became a fabulous self-taught cook and their home became a favorite place for friends and relatives to come for dinner. My Uncle Jim especially loved her Italian cooking which he said rivaled the best restaurants in Italy where he had eaten. Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holiday dinners along with summer barbeques were always a highlight of the entire extended Emmi family.

In 1957 my sister Gerri was born. Many months later my mom and dad discovered the upsetting news that my sister had a condition known as Down’s syndrome, and that my sister would never lead a “normal” life. Nellie was advised by doctors to just put my sister in an institution and forget about her and go about leading her life. Mom refused to do that. She was determined that she would take care of Gerri and do the best for her that a mother could possibly do; and that is exactly what she did!

In those days there were no special schools or workshops or any other type of facility to help children like Gerri. My mom, with the aid of a doctor who put her in touch with a few other Downey parents with similar children, began to push and advocate for programs for children with Down’s syndrome. When Gerri was three my mom enrolled her in a special school that was newly created due to efforts my mom and other pioneering mothers had made to get it established. It was called the Downey Training Center. My mom was a fierce advocate and was very involved with the Training Center. She also became active in her community lobbying the public schools, the mayor and the city council pushing for help for children like Gerri. Due to the efforts of strong parent advocates the Association for Retarded Citizens (ARC) was formed in Downey. Gerri began to attend both training classes and the workshop set up by ARC and attended there for decades starting in 1978. My mom was a strong supporter of ARC.

About the time I started high school, Nellie decided she needed another outlet for her life. She got a job as a noon time supervisor at the Rio Hondo Grammar School. This job gave her about an hour and a half break each day from her other responsibilities. For the first year or two she rotated around between the playground and the cafeteria. After a while, they noticed that she seemed to have a special talent for keeping order in the cafeteria and that assignment became her permanent duty. She remained the noon time cafeteria supervisor for the next twenty plus years until she retired at age 65.

Sometime in the 1980’s my mom got tired of just making an occasional outfit or altering clothes for the family and got involved in quilting. She became a very skilled quilter and continued that hobby until just a couple of years ago. She was active in her quilting guild and made many friends. Mom was also a member of the Happy Hookers, a crochet group that met regularly for years. My cousin Anna also has fond memories of going to my mom’s home every Sunday one year so my mother could teach her how to crochet.

In 1988 my father Tom passed away after a long illness. My mother had faithfully taken care of him at home making sure he never had to go into a nursing home. This was a difficult task as she was also taking care of Gerri too. My mom kept pushing my dad to hang on until their 40th anniversary, but my father passed away in her arms about one month shy of that milestone.

After my father’s death my mom and I became much closer. I was now out of college, living on my own and working full time. One day a neighbor friend of my mom’s told her that they were going on a 4-day cruise to the Bahamas and spending another week at Disney World and asked if she would be interested in going with them as the price was amazing. My mom asked if I would be interested in going with her and I said yes. The neighbor hooked her up with her travel agent and we booked the trip. I still remember when we got to the Big Red Boat in Orlando. My mom was in awe. All her life she had dreamed of going on an ocean cruise ever since she had been on board a ship at a Bon Voyage party as a young woman to see her dress designer boss off on a ocean voyage to Europe. We had a fabulous time on this cruise and my mom was now hooked. My mom went on seven other cruises, mostly with me accompanying her and always with Gerri. Yes, my mom made an effort to bring Gerri everywhere with her to give her the best life with the richest of experiences she could possibly give her. My mom and Gerri cruised to the Bahamas, the Caribbean, to South America and through the Panama Canal as well as though the Mediterranean visiting Spain, Italy, Malta and Greece. They traveled across the country, took day trips in Southern California and also went to Hawaii.

My mom also loved the theater. She saw many musical plays and often brought Gerri with her. They became inseparable companions.

My mom also had a knack for making friends. She was great at making new friends and she never forgot her old friends, always keeping in contact with friends from her childhood as well as her current friends. Mom seemed to know everyone and most everyone liked her.

After Gerri’s passing in June of 2014, my mom began to slow down. She had met her goal of giving Gerri the best possible life she could have, having dedicated her life to Gerri for 57 years. Mom was now more relaxed and content that Gerri had had a wonderful life. Unfortunately, chronic illness that had been affecting my mother for some years began to affect her more and more. She found herself having more days where she didn’t feel well enough to do the things she liked. However, she was determined to not give up and every day that she did feel good she took advantage of that day visiting with her friends and going places. It is just that the number of “good” days began to become fewer and fewer and the number of doctor’s appointments began to grow.

On January 5th, her birthday, she received a call from her doctor’s office instructing her to go into the hospital for a CTscan as they didn’t like the results of her last blood and ultrasound tests just done the previous week. That night she checked into the hospital. From that night forward for the next sixteen days, her health continued to decline and we were constantly given ever worse news about her condition with each subsequent test. After a week in the hospital and six days in a skilled nursing rehab facility, Nellie came home. There she spent her final days at her home on the Island comfortably in her own bedroom until she passed away in her sleep peacefully early Thursday morning on January 21st - my dad’s birthday.

I will miss my mom a lot. I will miss our daily phone conversations and I will miss all of the sound advice she gave me. I will miss her wonderful meals. I will miss her adventurous spirit. I will miss the unconditional love given to me, and I will miss her stories about her family and her friends. Mostly, I will miss a great friend.

Thank you.