Mary Minopoli February 22, 1936 - December 2, 2023
This skein of yarn has come to its end...Mary Frances (Canevari) Minopoli, 87, died in her home in Trumbull, CT after a long illness on December 2, 2023. Mary was born in Bridgeport, CT to an Austrian immigrant mother, Helene Gruner and her Italian father, Charles Canevari. She attended St Augustine school in Bridgeport in her elementary years and was given the job after school helping the nuns in the nearby convent prepare and clean up their meals, then walking home at night to an apartment with no running hot water. Her kind demeanor and studious nature led her to graduate Central High School with high honors and an award for never missing one day of school from first to twelfth grade. Mary married her only sweetheart Ralph Albert Minopoli when she graduated from St Vincent’s Nursing school. Ralph predeceased her two years ago. She is survived by Ralph’s siblings: her loving brotherin-law Carlo Minopoli and her sweet sister-in-law Ann (Minopoli) Silva. Carlo was married to Mary’s good friend Joan Macciocca, who played matchmaker pairing her friend Mary with her fiancé’s brother, Ralph Minopoli, a Korean War soldier stationed in Japan as a pharmacist. Ralph’s brother, Carlo served in the Navy at the time and managed to shore up in Japan for a memorable weekend with his brother.
She also leaves a devoted family, her dedicated daughter, Elene Moore (and husband Wayne “Skip” Moore) and two sons, Ralph (Barbara) Minopoli, Jr and Mark (Win) Minopoli who will all miss her dearly.
Bursting with pride and love, Mary had seven grandchildren and four greatgrandchildren, Michael (Clementine) Minopoli and their son Louis, Wade (Stacy) Moore and their daughter Violet and son William, Russell (Natalie) Moore, Dana (Kelly) Walsh and their son Avian, Hayes Moore, Colton Moore, and Keelea Moore.
Mary lived life to the fullest by helping others and making every day count with a fun adventure. She loved to shop and thrift store hunt and had an eye for design and fashion. She was a girl scout leader, a 4 H leader to her club “The Shiny Nichols”,
a docent at the Beardsley Park Zoo, a RI Master Gardener, a knitting instructor at the library’s knitting group, the resident gardener for the Charlestown, RI one room school house garden, a pond watcher for the Salt Pond Coalition, and an avid environmentalist in the Concerned Citizen of RI fight against a nuclear power plant that would have destroyed the Ninigret salt pond. Mary loved her gardens and delighted any guests who came to her home with her culinary creations made from her harvests. She prepared her own homemade pizza with clams she had harvested by taking a canoe with her husband to her favorite clamming spots. She was always baking pies and cookies for all her countless friends and neighbors. She loved to give her time and attention to others, always a helping hand and guiding neighborhood children in loving nature and being a good steward of the land and animals.
After working in the geriatric field of nursing, she retired with Ralph to the cottage they built in Charlestown, RI and enjoyed canoeing to find clams and steamers in the salt pond and foraging for wild mushrooms in the New England forests. Traveling together as a family in a minibus camper, they found educational opportunities to spend stints in UTAH on geology expeditions, Georgia for science odysseys, and New Hampshire for many summers for chemistry learning. They loved to attend the NEACT (New England Chemistry Teachers Association) summer weeks held at various New England campuses. Ralph and Mary were devoted to each other taking care of their gardens and home and many projects with which they busied themselves.
Mary will be missed by her PBB (Phi Beta Bedpan) friends (Pat Butzgo, Ann Surber, Jean Bynak, and Kathy Brennan) that have been doing lunches and constant phone calls since their days at nursing school when they were eighteen. Mary and Jan Moore, friends and neighbors for fifty-five years, were founding members of the Golden Girls Club which took them on many adventures this past year. Mary Frances had a very busy calendar for a senior and stayed active gardening and knitting and attended daily at the Trumbull Senior Center where she met many friends for knitting fun and bingo. Mary, your skein of yarn has run out and you did approach the end calmly, and you definitely did it your way! (In lieu of flowers, donations in Mary’s name to www.saltpondscoalition. org)