Rose Marie Michelene Ruggieri

Her name was Rose Marie Michelene Bertini Ruggieri. She was a God-fearing Catholic Italian princess born October 15, 1929, to her parents Gaitano Bertini and Rosa Di Vincenzo Bertini, the youngest of their four children. Her childhood afforded her a life among the hills of western Pennsylvania in Library and Bethel Park, her immigrant parents new-found home away from Italy. She grew up playing with her siblings Elvera Bertini Rigatti, Anthony Bertini, and Joseph Bertini in a humble house with chamber pots near the beds and clothes lines near the back door.

She watched her father carve out a simple living that provided her a Christmas gift consisting of a hair brush one year and a pair of socks the next, and she watched her mother perfect la cucina italiana that provided her at least one meal per day. She dropped out of school after the eigth grade to lend support to her family and she saw her brothers serve in the Pacific theater of World War II.

In these impoverished circumstances, she learned from her parents to love family and she learned from society to be tough. She always claimed that the world needed more Italians.

The love of her life was the handsome Italian American John Charles Ruggieri, who had returned from serving as a sniper in the European theater of World War II and who had set his sights on marrying Rose. He did. They married on June 8, 1946, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and began a mutually devoted relationship with one another until her husband’s death on April 19, 2005.

As newlyweds, she asked her master-carpenter husband to build a house for them in which to start her own family near la famiglia on Churchill Road. She bore three children, Valerie Joan Ruggieri Kelson, John Robert Ruggieri, and Mark Joseph Ruggieri, before eventually moving to Los Angeles, California, where she bore her fourth child, Kimberly Therese Ruggieri House. In Los Angeles, the young family made their home.

She united her family with love and expressed the same through her art of cooking. She made each and every meal exquisitely delicious: spaghetti, pasta fagioli, gnocchi, biscotti, torte, even toast. Everything she made included ingredients of love, passion, loyalty, humor, strength, sacrifice, and a few swear words.

Rose and John eventually moved to Hesperia, California, and then to Las Vegas, Nevada, where her friends became extended family and the St. Joseph Husband of Mary Roman Catholic Church became her Sunday worship and refuge. Near the end of her life, she found a new and beloved home in The Abbington of Heber City, Utah. Her move to her new mountain residence was a kind of homecoming, due to her having lived in the neighboring town of Midway for a brief period while her husband built a home for their daughter Valerie and her family. She loved the people of the Heber Valley, noting that their community was family-oriented and that their ancestry was Swiss, German, and English. She brought the Italian.

Her family was the source of her gratitude and her purpose of life. Her wealth was measured by continuous daily deposits of family and friend connection: phone calls, visits, and letters. Her love army of 50 grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren will always remember her: her smile, her voice, her laugh, her cooking. She engaged with focused conversations about her family, American politics, and the latest from People magazine.

She was feisty. She was hot-blooded. She was grateful. She embodied authenticity. We will always love her and thank God our lives have been enriched because of her.

She died at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, Provo, Utah, on Saturday, February 4, 2016, surrounded by family. Ci vediamo, principessa.