Rose M Bilotti

Born and raised Rose DiClerico in New Brighton, she graduated from Curtis High School. She lived on Highview Avenue in New Brighton for 63 years until entering Sea View two years ago.

She and Sabato Bilotti were childhood sweethearts who met when both were in school at PS 17 in New Brighton. She waited for his safe return when he went off to World War II, and the couple wed in Assumption Church in their community in 1946.

Mrs. Bilotti worked as a hairdresser before her marriage. Primarily a homemaker, she also helped her husband operate a concession at Faber Pool in Port Richmond in the early 1960s.

She loved to dance and was fond of Italian music, and was an excellent cook famous for her Sunday dinners, when the whole family would gather to enjoy her wonderful food, especially her homemade gravy. She also cooked the traditional Italian Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes, but her arms and home were welcoming year-round to family and friends. And she enjoyed having a big celebration on her birthday on New Year's Eve each year.

Mrs. Bilotti was all about family and did everything for her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, they said.

She was a lifelong parishioner of Assumption R.C. Church, which her father helped build. The parish is now Assumption-St. Paul's.

Sabato, her husband of 34 years, died in 1980.

Surviving are her sons, Joseph and Carmine; her daughter, Anne Winters; her brother, Albert DiClerico; seven grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.

The funeral will be Wednesday from the Casey Funeral Home, Castleton Corners, with a Mass at 10 a.m. in Assumption-St. Paul Church. Burial will follow in Ocean View Cemetery, Oakwood.