(914) 337-6770
info@mcgrathandson.com
20 Cedar Street, Bronxville, NY - 10708

DeLise, Amelia B. March 28, 2024

Calling hours: 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 pm Sunday May 6, 2018

Mass: 9:45 am Monday May 7, 2018, St. Joseph’s Church, Bronxville

Amelia (Amy) Delise, our ‘Florence Nightingale’

Regis Philbin, if you were still living on Cruger Avenue in the Bronx and you came down with the flu, my mother would drive right over with a bowl of chicken soup.

Amy is the “Florence Nightingale” of our family.  She has cared for many family members in times of need.

When Mom was in her mid-twenties, my grandmother became paralyzed in an unfortunate accident. Being the only daughter, she took it upon herself to quit her job in New York City and care for her mother until her final days.

Mom married Dad during this period; they had 3 wonderful children…2 girls and a boy.  When my younger sister was eighteen months old, she became very ill with a near-fatal disease.  Again, my mom was caregiver, taking care of my sister in and out of the hospital for many months, as well as looking after her mother. 

When my brother was 14, heartbreak struck again.  Dad unexpectedly had a fatal heart attack.  Mom raised my young brother through the most difficult years of a boy’s life.  Not one to accept assistance, she went back to work as a secretary at J.H.S. 135, (that’s on Cruger Avenue, Regis).  With little assistance, she managed to send my brother to Mount St. Michael High School and helped him thru Manhattan College. In addition, Mom paid the mortgage on a Cape Cod home purchased before Dad passed. She enjoyed her treks to the Cape for many years.

It still wasn’t smooth sailing for Amy.  During these years, my grandfather, affectionately called “Nonno”, became bedridden.  With the help of a nurse, she cared for him at home.

Mom finally retired at the youthful age of 74!  She took courses in computers, calligraphy, went to aerobics class once a week and played cards on Friday nights with friends.

My mother was a confident, a friend, a mother, a godmother, a grandmother as well as a God-send to others.

Mom’s great joy was her granddaughter, Katharine.

Her greatest wish, (other than the health and happiness of her family), was to go to Italy. She wanted to see the place where she was born and lived until the age of 3 when she came to live in the United States with her parents. She did go after retirement and was honored as the oldest living relative in her family by first, second and third cousins. For my Mother, this was the trip of a life-time!

Amy lived in the Bronx in the family house for most of her life.  She remembered, in her youth, the area in which she lived being mostly farmland..think of that, Regis, only about a mile away from you!

The last 3 years of her life, she resided at The Fountains at Rivervue in Tuckahoe.  Mom passed away on April 30, 2018 in White Plains Hospital at the age of 92.  God bless you, Mom.

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