Elena during one of her visits back home with her mom and my daughter Lisa (and Zippy the stuffed animal!). She always made you feel so special. 

My visit with my children to see my Cousin Elena. What wonderful memories I made! She was very special to me. 

Aunt Elana was my Aunt. She had such a beautiful way about her.  Loved her so much and it was always returned.  May God Bless her and I know she is in his loving arms.  I'm so sorry Chris and Andrew. I pray God helps you through this time. 
Cousin Brian

Elena Griesel welcomed me to her family with open arms as her granddaughter-in-law to-be. While Joseph and I were in college, he had an internship in Newark, and I had one in Dallas. Elena braved the Dallas traffic to meet me downtown for lunch, and I met the most joyful and loving woman in the world. You will be loved and missed, Nonna!

My Mother-in-Love, Elena Marie, I will still be talking to you daily, your Linda Marie.  I know I hit the jackpot with you.  I love you.

Elena Griesel - Nana - was the epitome of "doting grandmother". With her generosity (every visit was punctuated with enough leftovers in freezer bags to feed a family for a week) and her convivial nature (every visit, every conversation even! - was filled with more laughs than our bellies were by the trip's end) made her shine. She knew how to talk to people, making them always feel welcome, always ready to listen and to entertain. In addition to a grandmother I have lost my biggest fan - seriously, she would laugh at just about anything I said. It was great. There was no greater pep talk than just a normal conversation with her. 

Elena was the most loving, giving person imaginable.  How could you not love her and want to be around her..  She was a fabulous cook and it became an extension of her love.  She always made you feel welcome with her zest for life and she would entertain you with humorous stories of being raised in a large raucous Italian family in Queens!  There will never be another like her!  God speed, Elena.  We love you, Judy and Geren

My mother collected strays the way other people collect stamps or garden gnomes. We used to joke that lost animals had painted a little sign near Elena’s house that said “This lady is a soft touch. Give her the big sad eyes and it’s biscuits and gravy every day”. Oddly shaped, slightly used dogs of dubious pedigree, two rabbits that appeared as if pulled out of a hat, a family of ducks, and a baby goat, among others, all found sanctuary, mercy and comfort (and three squares a day with additional snacks) under my mom’s watchful eye. 

But the biggest stray of all was, of course, my father. She met a boy who was 1000’s of miles away from his home and who was a million miles away from Queens. He worked in Virginia and would drive for hours every weekend to see her. A man who I affirmatively believe despises show tunes would endure weekly musicals just to sit beside her. Slowly, like building trust with a skittish pup, she showed him a world outside Texas and engineering that they might build together. It was to be a mixed marriage: Catholic-Protestant; North-South; People who unwisely used ketchup as tomato sauce v. Non-barbarians. His people did not gesture wildly with their hands or understand that a acceptable method of family communication was for everyone to talk loudly all at once, preferably near food. And in October 1962 (and for 59 more years), they found mercy and comfort together under God’s watchful eye (and my dad got 3 squares a day under Elena’s watchful eye). What a wonderful life!

So let me tell you about my Mom. When I was a kid, I had a horrible speech impediment. So, Mom would pack me off in a car and drive across town to Callier Speech Clinic. I had the workbook of sounds I was supposed to practice. To make it “more fun”, she covered it in Disney contact paper. One of the exercises I had to do was play this game (picture above) of sounding out all the words I couldn’t say. She patiently played the game, day after day after day (and she always let me win). That challenge was followed by years of tracing phonics sounds on flash cards and working on speech and reading. Years later, I asked her if it was all worth it and she said “Maybe, I’m glad you can do all those things, but honestly, I don’t think you’ve shut up once since then”. That’s my mom. 

In my family, the most consistently funny person is my brother, Andrew. He could make my mom smile and laugh more often than anyone else. He would almost take it as a challenge to get her laughing out of an occasional down moment and almost always succeeded. But put Andrew and Mom together, well, they were the best comedy duo we had.  They had good timing, funny material, and a clever delivery. My poor dad-he filled the role most fathers have since “Leave To Beaver”-he was the straight man with a dry delivery who served up the fat comedy pitch my mom and brother teed off on and hit out of the ballpark. The picture sums up those roles. 

Elena Griesel fought a good fight, she finished her course, but most importantly, She KEPT the faith. I mean she KEPT it. People talk about “the faith of our fathers”, but truthfully I was raised by the faith of our mothers. Every day for 13 years of Catholic school, she made sure we were “hearing” what was being taught. Not by words alone but deeds, her faith was on display with the way she worked with children in the parish school or at St. Thomas itself. Not satisfied with the narrow opportunities offered to lay women in the 1970’s, she sought out more. She became a Eucharistic minister, she sought out other like minded, strong willed, women of faith and became a  member of powerful prayer groups. Through my mom, I got to hear about the lives of these women who scrubbed the churches, were the scout leaders and room mothers, led the carnivals and raffles, took care of the sick and the poor, and prayed a storm up, in addition to their other full time jobs of being workers, caregivers, mothers, and wives. Their faith (and the faith of my mother) strengthened every person they touched and every institution they entered.  My mother’s repeated small acts done with great love encourage me (and others) to go and follow her path of service and faith 

Words cannot describe what I am felling. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. My deepest condolences.

Everywhere we went as kids, and later when she would go places with her Grandchildren, Mom was always knitting us into a story-about the family, or our history, about faith, or about a life lesson. Enjoying a cookie-Did she tell you about her Uncle who worked at the Sunshine Baking Co.? When we visited Saint Patrick’s, she reminded the kids of how her father welded the hinges to the massive doors. Just last year, she reminded me of some of the jobs my grandmother, as a young 1st generation Italian-American woman, had before Elena was born-cigar roller at DiNobli and working at the Loft’s Candy Factory. The bus tour in the picture started at the Waldorf Astoria, where my parent stayed after their wedding (They were married in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis and came face to face with a grim faced Robert Kennedy on their elevator ride down from the honeymoon suite. My parents were always optimistic), and Mom told the kids about her wedding and the start of her life with their grandfather. Together with my brother and father, she narrated her New York and her history to them. 

In listening to people talk with My Dad and Brother since my Mom passed, a common refrain from parents of small kids is how much Mom enjoyed little kids. She leaned into those interactions. One year, when my Brother and I were young, I think we both got chicken pox. Uncharacteristically, it snowed in Dallas. My brother and I watched this golden opportunity wasting away. My Mom cleared out a bedroom, laid down plastic trash bag and brought buckets of snow into the room and piled it in each corner. We had what may have been the best (only?) indoor snowball fight in Dallas County.  There was never a time she wasn’t at her grandchildren’s eye level and listening, raptly, to ever part of a story they were telling, regardless of the fact it involved hamsters, trains, American Girl dolls, or Fire Type Pokémon she knew very little about (She said the only thing hard about grandparenting was that it was tough on the knees). Neighbor children knew Mrs. Griesel was a soft touch for a tea party on her front steps or a box of Thin Mints. She was absolutely delighted by kids and they were enchanted by her. 

There is no limit on the amount of silliness that my parents would engage in to make their grandkids happy. They loved Nana and Papa hood. 

Her 2nd grandchild, Joseph, decided to arrive a bit early (To spend more time with his Nana, Mom said). This is a picture of her holding him in the NICU. There was nobody that prayed harder for him in those days than his Grandparents. Because Joe’s parents were looking after Joe, Charlotte’s Nana took care of her. One afternoon, Elena suggested that Charlotte propose possible names for her younger brother. The best suggestion from the pair was Bluebonnet. Although that was an awfully good name,  he was Joseph. No one ever pinched Joseph’s checks harder than his grandmother. 

When my mom would get really mad at me as a little kid or sassy teenager, she always, usually while pointing a wooden spoon at me for emphasis, had the exact same wish: “I hope you have two, just like you”. Later after I had two children, she explained it was a win-win for her. I got to experience all the agita my brother and I gave her and she got two perfect grandchildren to unconditionally love and spoil. When Charlotte, her first, was born. My mother magically flew down I-35 (ok, she was driven by my dad). She’s wearing a ridiculously heavy (almost polar fleece) sweatshirt that said in 90 point type “I’M A GRANDMOTHER. ASK ME HOW WONDERFUL MY GRANDDAUGHTER IS!”. As you can see, it was love at first sight (and for all time) for all three. 

Mom was always adjusting her recipes. On her manicotti, she was figuring out the adjustments to double the recipe, which she figured was the appropriate amount of Italian food to serve at a gathering. I’m fairly certain her sauce contained more ingredients and spices than are listed in the recipe. Once I asked her about that as she threw a pinch of something in a bowl that wasn’t on a recipe card-her response was something like “Christopher, you can’t see everything in life. Sometimes you just have to try things and see how they turn out”. I’m fairly certain She was giving me both a cooking and life lesson. 

God, My mom loved cooking. One of my favorite memories is her mother and her cooking side by side. Trust me, if she every asked you for a recipe, she kept it. I think part of it was, in the beginning she was a stranger in a strange land-Trapped deep behind enemy lines, trying to learn unfamiliar dishes like cornbread dressing and Dr. Pepper Cakes. Later, it was a way to cement friendships and record history. On hundreds of pieces of paper, handwritten, xeroxed, torn from the paper and in file folders, binders, and Bibles, the history of your friendship and food was preserved by Elena Griesel.  The oldest recipe I came across was her Uncle Angelo’s recipe for Chicken Parmigiana. She has a recipe for Red Velvet Cake from her next door neighbor in Hampton, Virginia in 1963. There’s my Aunt Pat’s Corn Casserole and Aunt Gerri’s Cannoli Dip (served at Cici’s 1st Communion). She kept collecting notes to try and match her brother’s Easter Pies. She was in search of the perfect fig cookie recipe. She was a tough grader-Lucy Rose’s Apricot Tea is noted as “Good”, but her Sauce recipe and Bourbon Balls are marked “Excellent”, as is Green Beans Archer. I gave her only one recipe for Biscotti- to which she made no comment, only stapling another recipe “How to Bake Better Biscotti”. My favorite thing I ran across was a 1970’s recipe for the Italian dessert Cannoli, in which the heathen cookbook editor changed every reference to “Cammoli” and added the unhelpful description “Cream Roll” (This would have had a huge impact on “The Godfather” in which the central line would have become “Leave The Gun, Take The Cammoli”).  Mitch Albom talked about the “5 People You Meet In Heaven”, but my mom was one of the 5 people whose cooking I’d like to smell one more time. 

I love this picture of my Mother and Father. We were in New York after my Grandmother Maffia’s funeral. My Mother woke up and told us we were going into the city. She led, we followed. We spent the day visiting places she had grown up in or that she and my father had explored when they were dating. We ended up at Ellis Island and she made pencil rubbings of the names of the Sarnicolas and the Tedescos, some of her family that first came here. In the background of the photo is the city, my parents first met and fell in love in. Mom had taken us to the top of the World Trade Center before. It seemed like the perfect way to frame a photo. After 9/11, of course, the picture took on a different meaning. 

Today, I love the memory of that day and take comfort in a lesson that My mom often repeated to me: That while most things may pass away, there are things that will always remain.  “Three things will endure and last forever-faith, hope, and love-and the greatest of these is love”

My favorite picture of my mom had to be taken when she was 1 or 2. She’s a little girl swallowed by a hooded snow jacket and oversized mittens. There is deep, cold snow on the ground-the kind C.S. Lewis would say was a sign that it was "always winter, but never Christmas (or New Year's)". It was taken at 34-05 11th Street in Astoria, Queens, a place she always kept in her heart, no matter how far away she was. Across the street from her is surely her mother and her father with a camera trying to take the perfect picture of their daughter’s future. In the picture, She is beaming. Her smile is incandescent. You can tell that She is moments away from laughing. Her hair is slightly askew,  from running from one place to another. She is facing forward eagerly determined to take on whatever may come. And that one snapshot captured the next 79 years of her life-a woman of good spirits, who laughed to cut her troubles in half, who absolutely adored her family and friends, and was determined to accomplish what she set out to do. 

So this is the story I'm telling myself now. It is 79 years later. It’s a bright New Year’s Day. In this photo, the little girl slowly unbuttons her coat and crosses the street that separates her from the camera, not only by time, but distance and death. In an instant, she becomes the young woman, bride, mother, wife, grandmother and friend that she was in this world. And when she reaches the other side-where grief, crying and pain are no more-I can hear the laughter, hugs. and kisses as she reaches her Mother and Father and throws her arms around them. I can hear how wonderful it is for her to reunite with everyone she was missing-Rosie, her aunts and uncles, John and Viola, Dick and Mary Ann, all those friends from near and far, every prayer partner, and all of her dogs, rabbits, and her goat. It’s a wonderful and joyful picture. The only thing that makes that picture better is knowing that with work (and God's grace), we can be in it one day.

OBITUARY

Elena Griesel

July 12, 1941 – January 1, 2022

Calvary Hill Funeral Home & Cemetery

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