A LOVING TRIBUTE TO BETTY JANE PAOLANTONIO FROM HER SON, ALBERT
Betty Jane Paolantonio, 90 years of age, died on Monday, December 29, 2014 at Capital Care Hospice in Arlington after a more than five year struggle with Alzheimer’s. She was born in 1924 in Morgantown, WV to Loudel and Isaac Newton Price. Her father died within a year of her birth. Albert with his mother Betty, Christmas 2013 She was raised by her mother and six older half brothers and sisters in the midst of the Great Depression.
She grew up on a large farm in the Uniontown area of Pennsylvania, in the shadow of the coal mines. She used to tell the family stories about her life on the farm. It always seemed a little difficult to imagine her milking cows, and all of the other everyday chores on a working farm. The mother we all knew was a very stylish and modern woman. During her high school years, while living on the farm, a terrible fire broke out, and the farm and nearly all of her family’s belongings were lost.
Fortunately, she and her brothers and sisters were spared. Eventually, they started over. After graduating, Betty moved from Pennsylvania with one of her sisters, and found employment at the Old Post Office in Washington, DC. Not long after, she met our father at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. After my father’s graduation from the academy (class of ’45), Betty married John F. (Tony) Paolantonio in 1946, a Roman Catholic, 2nd generation Italian.
They were happily married for almost 48 years. She loyally supported our father throughout his long Navy career, and was the epitome of a Navy officer’s wife, adeptly performing all the necessary duties of an officer’s wife, and raising a family which would eventually consist of four boys and, finally, a girl. The marriage began during extremely difficult times. When our father went to fight in the Pacific during World War II, she waited for him to return, and handled life at home. After the war, when Dad was transferred to Guam, she followed with her two oldest sons, John and Lawrence, in tow onboard a ship. While there, she gave birth to David, her 3rd son.
There were other duty calls in Newport, RI (where I was born), Norfolk and Portsmouth, VA, New Jersey and New Hampshire. My mom loved to shop, and always presented herself with such class and beauty whether she was at work at Snelling and Snelling Employment Agency in Old Town Alexandria, where she worked for many years, or going to the grocery store. She never looked unkempt, and she always encouraged us to try to put on the best face possible, as well. She grew up with a great love of music which would always remain with her. She played the clarinet in the high school band. She also played the organ and piano in her Methodist church.
She loved Dean Martin and Lawrence Welk. In fact, she always said the two things she wanted most before she died was to dance with Lawrence Welk, which she, in fact, did and to have a drink with Dean Martin (which, unfortunately, she did not). Many were the dinners on Sunday nights when the family had to relocate to the den from the kitchen so mom could watch the Lawrence Welk show while we ate. She also adored country music, which was on her radio whenever you traveled in her car with her. Growing up, we would often hear our mom sitting down in the evening at the electric organ in our home and playing various songs from her youth happily for anyone who wanted to listen or just for her own enjoyment. During the Christmas season, the house would be alive with mom playing carols and religious-themed Christmas music. Later in life, while living in Williamsburg, when she no longer played as much, she purchased a “player piano” which would do the work for her.
At home, Betty was an excellent cook and housewife. Although my mom was not Italian, she learned Italian cooking and many other Italian traditions and language from our dear Grandma Rose and the rest of my father’s family in the Boston area. She excelled at lasagna, which she cooked every Christmas, and other pasta dishes and sauces, but was an expert at every type of cooking. She made homemade pizzelle during the holiday season, too, but also mastered all different styles of desserts, which she made throughout the year. She was also very interested in home decoration and was wellversed in many different designs. Whether it was Colonial Williamsburg, Italian art, French Country or, in general, antiques, she was always open to enriching the home and expanding her interior design knowledge. My mom loved to have her children’s friends visit at our house. She would sit and talk with them in the living room or in the kitchen while she cooked.
Her children’s friends often became her “adopted” children. She always insisted on being kept up-to-date on their lives. She could be brutally honest with anyone. She was strong. People liked her because of that. She was a real lady. Through the years, mom had always found time for travel. Because of her family, sometimes she would have to go by herself while our dad took care of us. Other times she stayed at home so our dad could travel. Sometimes, both mom and dad would travel together if our Grandma and Great Aunt Angie came from Massachusetts to look after us. She toured Italy several times (with a broken leg on one trip which included visiting the famous Blue Grotto in Capri), Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New England, Florida, Canada and countless other places. In 1990, I had the good fortune to make my first trip to Italy with both my parents and my sister. My parents had toured there several times before, but on this trip I encouraged my dad to make a special trip from Rome. We traveled by train to Isernia in Molise. From there, we took a cab ride through the mountains to the medieval village of Roccasicura, where my grandfather Pietro was born.
We spent an unforgettable day walking the streets, visiting San Leonardo Church, and we made a special visit to the home of an old friend of the family. We also met the daughter of my grandfather’s brother Nicola, Bianca, who was the schoolteacher in the town. My mom loved to laugh. She always, like our father, enjoyed a good joke. And, our father could always make her laugh. She loved her family and her friends with a great passion. There were no limits to what she would do, in particular, for her children. No matter what happened, that was the one constant. And, she was tested by each and every one of us. But, in the end, she loved us with all her heart. Betty adored her grandchildren and great-grandchildren (three of each). Most of them arrived after our father had passed in 1993, so she had extra pride and enjoyment whenever she got to see them. She moved to Williamsburg a couple of years after my father’s death. There, the family would visit her during holidays and birthdays. She moved back and forth between the Alexandria area and Williamsburg in recent years so she could be present for the births of Andrew and Toni, her grandchildren, and, of course, to be near her only daughter, Lisa, during this time.
Then, Williamsburg would call her to move back again. She loved it there. Her happiest moments in life were spent whenever and wherever she had the chance to visit or be visited by her family. She always was saddened when we left - even at the end, when we visited her at the Mount Vernon Sunrise facility where she lived the last five years of her life after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But, now it is she that has left us, and we are grieving. She was strong enough to overcome many obstacles throughout her life, many battles with skin cancer, hypertension, and three miscarriages. Finally, Alzheimer’s was the fight she could not win. But she never gave up to the very end.
Her life is a testament to never throwing in the towel, living life to the fullest, and always going forward with grace, no matter what life throws at you. (submitted by Albert Paolantonio, a longtime member and supporter of AMHS).