Much is made of the last words the dying speak before passing to the next world. The writer William Saroyan, whose stories celebrate living life to the fullest, phoned his exit line into the Associated Press shortly before his death at age 72 in 1981.
Maria Santa Zannino, Christmas, 2012
“Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?”
Rarely do you hear about a last laugh. Who goes out with a chuckle?
Immacolata “Tina” Mastellone has the honor of giving Maria Santa Zannino a comforting moment of mirth before her beloved aunt died at age 80 on August 24 just outside of Baltimore.
They were in Mrs. Zannino’s room at the Gilchrist Hospice, talking about the good old days, the early 1970s when Maria and her husband Joseph would pack up their eight kids along with friends and relatives and head to Ocean City for a much-needed vacation from the family funeral business in Highlandtown.
“It was the summer of 1974 and my aunt called it the summer of the white bikini,” said Mastellone, who wore her black hair almost to her hips, a teenager sporting the white two-piece against a bronze Italian tan.
Aunt Maria, a former model long admired for her own beauty, enjoyed telling young Tina how “exquisite” she looked.
“I went to see her about two days before she died,” recalled Mastellone. “I told her I almost wore the white bikini but I didn’t have the body for it anymore. She laughed and my cousins told me it was the last time she laughed like that.”
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Born at St. Joseph Hospital in Baltimore (she was a lifetime city resident), the former Maria Santa Glorioso grew up on Keyworth Avenue in northwest Baltimore and graduated from St. Ambrose parochial school on Park Heights Avenue.
The young Maria Glorioso in her early 1950s modeling days.
She took piano at the Peabody Conservatory for four years and in 1951 graduated from Seton High School on North Charles Street. The following year completed studies at the Walters Academy of Baltimore, a former modeling and charm school, also on Charles Street.
Her brief modeling career included many pageants, including, her children said, a run at the Miss Maryland title.
“Some agency wanted Mom to go to New York to model lingerie and she said NO,” laughed her daughter Rosemarie “MiMi” Zannino, a poet. “She was very modest.”
After high school, she worked as executive secretary to the controller/treasurer of Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 1957, she married Joseph N. Zannino, Jr. 84, who survives her along with eight children and many grandchildren.
Maria Zannino and Joseph Zannino on their wedding day, 1957.
In 1958, Mr. Zannino founded the business that bears the family name and in 1965, Mrs. Zannino joined him as a funeral director. The funeral home stands at 263 South Conkling Street, just north of Eastern Avenue and south of East Pratt Street. The area is also home to Our Lady of Pompei church and DiPasquale Grocery and was once known as Baltimore’s second Little Italy.
Street smart, book smart and highly observant, Mrs. Zannino served her customers with genuine empathy, not by-the-book etiquette. When my Spanish grandfather Rafael Alvarez
When the body arrived, Mrs. Zannino called my parents and said, “Dad is with us now.” My folks never forgot the kindness.
Once, when a recently divorced young man was leaving a party at her home (above the funeral parlor), Mrs. Zannino commented to one of her daughters, “That’s the saddest boy I’ve ever seen. Look at how he walks.”
Her own funeral was handled by her son Charles, who earned his state funeral director’s license in 1983.
On through the end, she was involved in just about all aspects of “Zannino’s,” and was reviewing bank statements (usually finding discrepancies) and spreadsheets almost to the day she entered Gilchrist.
Mrs. Zannino loved rooting for the home teams – the baseball Orioles and the football Ravens and the team that will never die, the Baltimore Colts – and just last week was asking her children how the Birds were doing in the American League East. [The answer depended on which day she asked.]
The Zannino funeral home.
An 11 a.m. funeral Mass will be celebrated for Mrs. Zannino, who died of complications from heart disease, at the Pompeii church, 3600 Claremont Avenue.
“To me, she was all about beauty,” said Tina Mastellone, who was chosen to give one of the eulogies. “At first glance, she was movie star beautiful but Aunt Maria’s beauty was transcendent: an appreciation of beautiful things … the beauty of the heart.
“When you had a conversation with her she made you feel like you were the only person in the world.”
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial donations in honor of Maria Santa Glorioso Zannino be made to the Kennedy Krieger Foundation, 801 North Broadway, Baltimore, MD. 21205
Wonderful obit, Rafe. Only you can write them like that.
You’ve turned East Baltimore and its people, including this lovely lady, into an old sweet song.
Thank you for the obituary and photos. A grand lady and matriarch lives on in her children and all the lives she touched.
“When you had a conversation with her she made you feel like you were the only person in the world.”
That’s the highest admiration a person can hope for! Thanks for a warm remembrance of such a deserving lady.
A moving and inspiring remembrance, Rafael. IMHO you are in the elite class of Baltimore’s great storytellers.
This review is filled with such warmth, honesty and delightful detail. It rings true. As always, Rafael puts the person in the community and the community in the person.
A beautiful article about a beautiful lady.
When Alvarez writes about someone, you feel as if you had known the person all of your life. Beautifully written Ralphie! Maria Santa Zannino is smiling! May her memory be eternal.
Raphael, you could not have described my mother any better. She was such a woman of class, poise, and the most non judgmental individual I have ever known. Thank You for honoring my mother with this beautiful tribute.
Charles S. Zannino