Obituary of Eugenia Joan Zaccardi

Eugenia Joan Zaccardi

Greenwood Lake, N.Y. and Pompton Plains, N.J.

Eugenia Joan Zaccardi, devoted mother and loving grandmother, beloved art teacher, and avid artist was called home to our Lord and Savior on Thursday January 4, 2018. She was 98 and 7 months old.

The daughter of Joseph and Isabella Bruno of Brooklyn, N.Y., she was born on June 18, 1919. She was premature and the doctor doubted she would make it through the night. But her grandmother wrapped her in blankets in a roasting pan by the kitchen woodstove. Her sister Louise cried all night in a nearby closet thinking her new sister was being cooked.

She studied her calling at the Grand Central School of Art in N.Y. City and worked at painting souvenirs on leather. Upon the birth of her sister's first son the family began to spend their summers in a cottage high up in Wa-Ta-Wah Park overlooking Greenwood Lake. She met her soon to be husband Anthony at the dance hall adjacent to the Brandon House hotel on that same lake, and when that strapping young man volunteered to carry the family's outboard motor up to the third level of Wa-Ta-Wah her father immediately approved of her choice.

She raised two boys in suburban New Jersey then went back to school and received her teaching degree from what is now William Patterson University. Thus began her second career as an art teacher at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic School in Boonton, N.J. and ended up teaching several generations of families. She also worked at St. Joseph Catholic School in West Milford.

Eventually she reached the retirement age of the "fake" age she had put on her original application and so ended her teaching career in her early eighties. In retirement she travelled northwest and became an active member of the Catskill Art Society. And through all of this she cared for her husband Anthony, a Fire Captain in Jersey City who became disabled in 1973 and passed away in 1992.

She is survived by her son Joseph and his wife Melody of Greenwood Lake; son John and his wife Michele of Pompton Plains, N.J.; seven grandchildren: Jennifer and her husband Scott Kupka of West Milford, N.J.; Meghan Zaccardi of Highland Lakes, N.J.; Katie and her husband Steve Ostella of Denver, CO.; Adam Zaccardi of Pompton Plains, N.J.; Margaret Zaccardi of N.Y. City; Anne and her husband John Ruzsilla of Westwood, N.J. and Isabella Zaccardi of Greenwood Lake, N.Y. She is also survived by her great grandson Liam Kupka.

She was predeceased by her parents, husband and sister Louise Simari.

Visitation hours will be held on Sunday January 7, 2018 from 2-5 P.M. at the Strong Basile Funeral Home 4 Oak St. Greenwood Lake, N.Y.

A Funeral Mass will be celebrated on Monday January 8, 2018 at 10 AM at Holy Rosary Church in Greenwood Lake, N.Y.

Burial will be held at the convenience of the family.

Memorial contributions may be made to St. Jude Children's Hospital.

Arrangements by Strong Basile Funeral Home 477-8240 or www.ocfuneralhomes.com.