Viggiani, Jennie G.

Passed away on Monday, July 27^th, 2020. Predeceased by her husband, Edgar, brother, Sammy Moretti, sister-in-law, Diane Moretti, and brother-in-law, Eugene Viggiani. Survived by daughters, Elissa (Sonny) Kompanek, LuAnn (Dave) Smith, Gina Viggiani, Diane (Steve) Richardson, grandchildren, David, Marie, Christopher, Nina, Stevie, Scotty, great-grandsons Weston and Logan, sister, Luisa Moretti, as well as nieces, nephews and extended family and friends.

A private funeral service will be livestreamed on Saturday, August 8, 2020 at 10 AM from the Richard H. Keenan Funeral Home.  A celebration of her life will be scheduled for a later date.

Giovannina Gloria Moretti was born in Provedence, RI in 1927 to Mary and Filomeno Moretti and spent her early years in a multi-generational house with grandparents Lucia and Giuseppe Bevilaqua. Jennie (as family and friends would soon call her) enjoyed playing and in just two years would have a sister, Luisa, who would remain a close confidant for the rest of her life.

In these early years, she developed a passion for singing and dancing, so much so that if her father didn’t hear her voice when he came home from work on a construction site, he’d ask her what was wrong? She was equally passionate about her faith, which developed while attending Sunday school at the Immaculate Conception Church. She met a lifelong friend, Gabriella Werner, while singing in the choir. Her love of performing developed at Morris High School where she acted in school plays and forged new friendships with Lydia Misaraca and Genevieve DiFerdinando.

When she was four, the family moved to 154^th street in the South Bronx, which was then an Italian enclave. Jennie attended kindergarten at PS 3, despite not speaking any English. Even as she adjusted to life in the city, she loved spending summers in Rhode Island with her cousins and relished the birth of her baby brother Saverio (Sammy) when she was eight.

Upon graduation, she became interested in the budding world of television and took voice lessons to become an announcer. She simultaneously studied short hand to land a job as a typist and all the while continued to sing in the church choir.

One spring day, she decided to take a much-earned vacation with a girlfriend to Loon Lake in the Adirondacks. While singing “Easter Parade” in the resort’s choir activity, she met a young army veteran named Edgar (Ed). He was quite taken by her, but she left before he could ask for her number. Undeterred and with a soldier’s determination, he called the resort upon returning home claiming he lost her number. Suspicious of the claim, the resort called Jennie to verify, and she consented to giving him her number despite being wise to the scheme.

Thus began a long-distance courtship that led (after Ed’s mother Lucia pronouncing that Jennie was a “nice Italian girl”) to marriage and Jennie moving to Western New York. She gave up opportunities to sing solos at her church, but religion and the choir would remain a constant throughout her life. Catholicism was her beacon and saying the rosary each night became an important and comforting part of her life. When her daughter Gina asked if she ever wanted to be a nun, she said no because she wanted to have children.

She had four of them in a quest to give Ed the boy he wanted, but God had other plans: they had four amazing daughters. Their first, Elissa, was born just nine months and seventeen days after their wedding day. In these years, Jennie and Ed lived on the top floor of a two-family house shared with Ed’s Uncle Archie and Aunt Pat who helped Jennie care for their newborn while he attended college paid for by the GI Bill.

Two years and eight months later, their second daughter, Lucy Ann (LuAnn), was born while Ed went to law school at SUNY Buffalo. A third child, Gina, would come four years later when they lived in another two-family house with Lucia. He worked as a claims adjuster and taught Drivers ED while she tended to their growing brood and helped care for her mother-in-law.

A couple years later, they moved to Kenmore and Jennie got a job typing for a court reporter, work she would accomplish at night only after all of her daughters were in bed. A fourth, Diane, was born soon after and Ed was transferred to Rochester. During this time, Jennie worked as a cashier at Wegman’s and in a dentist’s office, but it was important to her to only take jobs near their home in case her daughters needed her. When she was offered a position at Nazareth College working in the Bursar’s office with Sister Mary Gerard, she happily accepted.

Elissa inherited her mother’s love of singing and dancing and remembers Jennie taking her for tap lessons with a local vaudevillian performer Curly Fisher who taught out of his converted garage. “It’s a gift that still creates joy for me,” she recalls. For her debut performance, Jennie made her own debut, hand sewing a satin dress with sequined trim for the very first time that Elissa has held onto to this day.

Dedication to her family was a second religion to Jennie, and she worked hard, rarely relaxing and often falling asleep as soon as she would ease into her chair at night. She had incredible patience even when her children were at their most trying and squeezed in time to solve a Sudoku puzzle or play Word Jumble while drinking her early morning coffee when she could. She also loved watching Sing Along with Mitch starring native Rochestonian Mitch Miller. Later on, she would avidly watch ice-skating and Ed’s favorite golf, rooting for Tiger Woods even after he fell from grace because she said, “everyone deserves a second chance.”

As her daughters grew and became more independent, Jennie became more involved at the Assumption of Our Lady church in Fairport.  She joined the choir and became a cantor. She and Ed also enjoyed golfing and bowling with their friends. They would often have them over for dinner and welcomed their daughters’ friends to stay for dinner as well. Jennie had a talent for whipping up a delicious meal for twelve with whatever was in the fridge, and leftovers were de rigueur.

Sunday supper (served at 2pm) was of the most enduring and important traditions. After making waffles for breakfast, Jennie would make the Sunday sauce with homemade meatballs and sausage that slow cooked all day and later pizza for dinner, from scratch of course. Tins with pizza dough were given to each daughter, so they could make pizza with her. These were also the meals where she would bond with her future sons-in-law. Elissa’s husband Sonny developed his love of spaghetti and meatballs during this time and LuAnn’s husband Dave was fond of her escarole soup despite being an enthusiastic carnivore. Everyone agreed she made the best food. Decades later when Jennie and Ed were empty nesters, Gina would come over and cook Sunday Supper with her mom, sometimes making her famous pizza.

“I’ll never have pizza that tastes as good as Mom’s. I long for her homemade sauce and her Sunday dinners,” Diane laments. She also will remember the Italian heros Jennie made her post-college when she was living at home. Fresh bread with layers of cold cuts, roasted red peppers and drizzled with olive oil – “my colleagues would always salivate when they saw what she made me.”

LuAnn recalls Jennie made a traditional chiffon cake with boiled milk icing for each of her daughters’ birthdays. “She was a fantastic cook and baker; we try to live up to her level but fall just short.” Her love, LuAnn suspects, is the missing ingredient.

That love extended past her family, and Jennie was known for her boundless generosity. She ran errands and did grocery shopping for many friends in need, including her close friend Patty Mauro who had limited mobility due to Multiple Sclerosis. With all that she did, she found time to volunteer at a food pantry.  She could be shy though. Gina recalls visiting Jennie in Florida where she and Ed would spend the winters after they retired. “She was always working in the apartment and did not spend a lot of time on the beach.  I brought mom down with a neighbor, Jan, and the three of us spent a lot of time on the beach for the rest of my vacation. They became very good friends who kept in touch when they weren’t in Florida.”

When her daughters were all grown, Jennie continued to be the attentive, caring mother and grandmother.  Even though two of her grandchildren were born five weeks apart with about 350 miles between them, Jennie managed to help both moms and infants, an amazing feat considering they are only five weeks apart. 

She had an innate ability to take care of her family when they needed it most. She stayed by Gina’s bedside all night when she was hospitalized for pneumonia. Despite only being five at the time, Gina can still picture her mother’s exhausted face looking at her from the end of the bed. Decades later, Diane got pneumonia the year she got married, and Jennie rushed to her house to do all her laundry even with an increasingly bad knee. She provided the same attentive care when her grandson Chris came down with the very same pneumonia, during one of many summers he spent with Jennie and Ed. She also gave him personalized Sunday school lessons to prepare him for first communion.

In fact, she taught religion to many children throughout the community and at the beginning of each new class she would always ask them, “Do you know how special you are?”

“Mom was so smart but she never really believed it. She was always deferential and never totally believed she was valuable. Even when she was given real proof,” Elissa recalls. Despite never being able to attend college, she was very smart. She was great at math, managing finances and was leery of lying in the sun long before it was known that extended exposure could cause skin cancer. She would tell her children, “it’s baking your skin.” She always supported her children and grandchildren and was a regular fixture at her grandsons Scotty and Stevie’s many sporting events. She loved to listen to her granddaughter Nina and her grandson, Scotty sing and her face would light up with a radiant smile whenever she saw all her grandchildren, including David, Marie, and Chris, and her great grandchildren Weston and Logan.

Even when her dementia was stealing her memories and her ability to be self-sufficient, she remained fiercely protective of her children. When one of her girls was sick or upset, she switched into protective mama bear mode. She always put her family first and herself last. She was kind, generous, loving, caring, and beautiful inside and out. She loved unconditionally, and never made you feel like you were lacking. She left a void in our hearts that can’t be filled. 

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