Rose Del Pizzo

Rose Del Pizzo

5-15-1935 to 5-1-2020

Rose Mandala LaMastra Del Pizzo passed away the early morning hours of May 1, 2020, just a couple weeks shy of her 85th birthday. The cause of death was COVID-19. Rose was the daughter of immigrants from Sicily – her mother, Ignazia (Nancy) Mandala, from Monreale, and father, Federico LaMastra, from Racalmuto. Her parents met and married in New York City, where Rose was born and lived in the Bowery section the first five years of her life until her parents eventually settled in Elizabeth, New Jersey, as owners and operators of Fred’s Tavern on the corner of Spring Street and Anna Street. Rose was a creative talent with powerful soprano vocals that pleased everyone’s ears, from her performances at St. Mary’s Parish in Paterson, New Jersey, to her performances in community theatre – and one special performance of Sophie Tucker’s “Some of These Days” at New York’s cabaret, Eighty-Eights  in the late 90s. Rose went to Sacred Heart High School in Elizabeth and graduated from business school and eventually took a job as an assistant to leadership at MidLantic Bank. She was a powerhouse in so many ways – a great singer, a prolific writer, a creator of fashion drawings, and active in her Catholic church community leadership positions. In her longtime home in Paterson, New Jersey, Rose cared for her mother as she was dying, her husband, and her father – in that order.  She last resided at Sunrise Assisted Living in Madison, New Jersey.  She was predeceased by her beloved husband, Dante Del Pizzo, in 1996, whom she met at a dance at the Irvington House in Irvington, New Jersey and married October 31, 1959, and older brother, Alfonso LaMastra, who passed in 1940 from myasthenia gravis, a disease like the cause of his sister’s death, one that had no successful treatments at the time. She is the loving mother of Melinda Del Pizzo, Nancy Del Pizzo and her spouse, Carole Soricelli, Lisa Cozzi and her spouse, Benny Cozzi, and cherished grandma to Joseph Cozzi and Daniel Cozzi. She is survived by her younger brother, Paul LaMastra.

Funeral arrangements are private and restricted in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, which took Rose’s life. The family is eternally grateful to the plasma donor, whoever that was, who gave us hope in her last days.

Funeral Home:

Higgins and Bonner

582 Springfield Avenue

Westfield, New Jersey 07090

1-908-789-7400

Committal:

St. Gertrude Cemetery & Mausoleum

53 Inman Avenue

Colonia, New Jersey 07067

1-888-444-2791

Memorial Gifts:

Fully recovered COVID-19 patients are encouraged to donate plasma to treat patients seriously ill with COVID-19, as part of the ongoing Mayo Clinic study in nationwide hospitals, including in New Jersey. See redcrossblood.org for more information and/or contact: 1-800-733-2767.  If not a recovered COVID-19 patient, please consider making a donation to: Trinitas Health Foundation’s COVID-19 Emergency Fund at www.trinitasrmc.org/give (and click COVID-19 Emergency Fund or Trinitas tribute gift). Trinitas is a Catholic Foundation supported by the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth and is located in Elizabeth, N.J. near Rose’s childhood home. For telephone donations to Trinitas, contact (1-908-994-8249).

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