Ann R. Bondi

Ann Rita Bondi......August 7, 1928 – August 20, 2023.

Ann was born and raised in The Bronx in New York City, among a close-knit group of family
members and friends, at 2429 Maclay Avenue. Her father, Antonio (Tony) Frallicciardi held a
variety of jobs, including taxi driver, coal truck driver, ice truck driver, and last was owner of a
private sanitation business. Her mother, Emma (Mauro) had seamstress skills that enabled her to
do some paid work at home.

A lot of the closeness was due to her mother coming from a large family – two brothers and four
sisters, and the friendly and safe nature of the neighborhood. Also, the Mauro grandparents lived
in the same two-family house. Cousins such as Freddie, Gracie, and Ralph Mauro, Camille
(Tootsie) Soricelli, and friends such as Carolyn (later Ingenito, growing up two doors away),
became life-long friends and companions. Her younger sister, Regina, was a life-long best friend
until deceased in 2009. Her father came from a smaller family that lived in the nearby Van Nest
neighborhood, and visits to the Frallicciardi grandparents were frequent.

It was a childhood of family visits, bike rides, dance lessons, studying, and trips away to a
country farm in the summer. She graduated from Sacred Heart Private (elementary) School. For
high school, she took the subway to Cathedral High School in Manhattan, and later told of her
studying during these commutes. Despite excelling academically, she, like many women of the
era, would not seek out a college education. After a year of business school, she set out and
became a secretary for Blue Cross/Blue Shield, where she would meet her husband, Charles
Gasper Bondi.

Ann and Charles were married in 1950, at Santa Maria’s Roman Catholic Church in The Bronx.
The couple lived in The Bronx for a few years, first in a house occupied by Sal Mineo’s family,
and then in a six-story apartment building on Hull Avenue. There, the first two sons (Charlie
and Michael) were born, and she made do with taking her turn with the building’s one washing
machine and a clothesline on the roof. Soon the family would venture out to find a home in the
suburbs, at 16 Palmer Place in Valley Stream.

Life in Valley Stream brought the third and fourth sons, Stephen and Joseph. Naturally, raising
four children while the husband was working overtime and finishing both the basement and
second floor of 16 Palmer would be a hectic life for any housewife. Add to this an active social
life with the Fox, Tomasulo, Lynch, Limardo, Medici, Bogle, Antonucci, and the Cummings
families (and with the Ingenitos, who had also moved to Valley Stream), active membership in
Blessed Sacrament Church, Holy Name Society, and Rosary Society, and we see Ann is a
woman of great energy and devotion.

As the sons grew up and away, there was more time to relax and to do some volunteer work.
Ann and husband Charlie loved going to the Valley Stream public pool, where they had an
additional group of friends such as the Flood and the Baier families, volunteering to take blood
pressures at Long Beach, and helping out on church bus trips to Atlantic City. She and husband
Charlie would also take frequent walks around the lake in the park behind the pool. These years
also included a few trips abroad – to Italy and Spain.

Ann and Charlie particularly enjoyed a twenty-year period when they went to Florida a couple of
times each year for a few weeks. There, they regrouped with Tootsie, her Aunt Grace and cousin
Gracie (the Mauros), cousin Elaine, sister Regina, and other aunts, uncles and cousins, who had
by now moved from the New York Area to the Clearwater area of Florida. These years also
brought time to spend with the growing families of Michael, Stephen, and Joseph. To be with
the grandchildren Anthony and Brendan (Michael’s and Maureen’s), Kristy and Vanessa
(Stephen’s and Diane’s), and Natalie and Nicole (Joe’s and Cecilia’s) brought Ann a special joy
each time they could be together.

The later years brought challenges compassionately and cheerfully faced – ones of health, of
widowhood, and maintaining some independence at 16 Palmer. Her husband, Charles,
predeceased her in 2016. She had the world’s best neighbors, such as Jeff and Margaret, who
helped out in so many ways. She continued her religious devotion, receiving communion at
home from extraordinary ministers (Mark Daley and Kathy Bogle), watching Mass on TV, and
reading Mother Teresa's "The Joy in Loving" (every other year, "to keep it fresh"). She
persistently stayed in touch with elderly friends by phone, even as some could barely converse.
She found happiness and peace in simple pleasures such as “green parrots” singing in the trees,
visits from sons and families, calls with cousins, sons, and nieces, Saturday lunches brought by
son Steve, some pizza, baklavas, small black-and-whites, and soups from Eastern Meat Farms.
Her last year brought her to her latest home, at Bristal, which she grew to appreciate, with its
good food and its helpers. She continued her hobbies as much as she could, such as reading
novels and historical fiction, newspapers, watching the Yankees and soap operas, as well as her
religious devotion.

She struggled cheerfully to 95. Yet, to each of us, including myself, Charlie, and Joyce, it was a
life too short. She leaves her four sons, six grandchildren, cousins Freddie, Raffi, and Arthur, and
four nieces and two nephews (Francine, Anthony, Richie, Annette, Louise, and Rose). We are
heartbroken, and already miss sharing those simple pleasures. Yet, we know that she would only
wish that we live our best lives.  Despite the pain of losing her, we also appreciate how incredibly fortunate we have
been to know and to love her each in our own way.

Some of her last words, when offered a bite to eat at the hospital were: “Did you have
something?” and “We should be eating together.”