Angelina Mattia Di Nuzzi Hall
May 13, 1928 – August 28, 2023
Angelina Mattia Di Nuzzi was born on May 13, 1928 to Luigi and Anna Di Nuzzi in Rochester, New York, in an Italian immigrant neighborhood where wine and pizza were made in the basements and figs, green beans, and oregano were grown in the gardens. Her sister, Viola, came along three years later. Angelina took care of Viola (who apparently lost umbrellas and hats, cried a lot, and could never keep her mouth shut) and her parents for the rest of her life.
The family attended a church where Mass was said in Italian and the Irish pastor, Father Tydings, became a friend of the Di Nuzzi’s, especially Angelina. She graduated from Jefferson High School having made lifelong friends. Two of her high school friends and Angelina would later marry men named “Donald” and they formed “The Donald Club” which met regularly. After high school, Angelina worked at the University of Rochester for Miss Harper who became a role model. Mrs. Tomdale, legendary for her ravioli, was another friend and mentor from this time.
The family decided that Viola, “the smart one,” would go to college, which she did with the support of her parents and sister. While in graduate school at U.S.C., Viola met Jerry Koory and, after spending a year in the territory of Hawaii teaching 5th grade, came back to California to marry Jerry. A plan was hatched for Angelina and her parents to move across country and live near Viola and Jerry in California. Though Anna Di Nuzzi was reluctant (for someone who took a steamboat from Naples to New York in 1927, she was not very adventurous), Angelina prevailed. In 1958, she piled her parents and suitcases into a new car and drove them (her parents never learned to drive) across country.
The three of them bought a house in Van Nuys on Cedros Street. There they made friends with their neighbors, including the Martin family. Her cousins also settled in Southern California, including her favorite, Alfonso Nuzzo, Jr., with whom she enjoyed many good meals and Rams games at the Coliseum. Angelina attended St. Elisabeth’s where she sang in the choir for decades. She also sang in COTA, a community choir. She loved to sing; she had an organ at her house, a collection of LPs, and stacks of sheet music everywhere.
Angelina got a job at the Bendix Corporation, an aerospace firm in Burbank, when aerospace was the California high tech industry. Viola and Jerry had two children, Mary Ann and Louis, whom Angelina joyfully added to her list of people to take care of.
On August 18, 1973, at age 45, she married Donald E. Hall and lived with him and his three boys on Noble Street in Van Nuys. He died from lung cancer on October 31, 1975, 26 months after they were married.
Angelina eventually retired from Bendix after decades of service, and started a new job at Datametrics Corporation. In 1987, her mother died and her father died three years later at the age of 98. She missed them every day.
Angelina would only spend money on other people; she was exceptionally thrifty for herself. But in 1996 after she retired (again), with savings from working since she was 18 years old, Angelina bought her dream beach house in Ventura on Devon Lane. She began another job that she enjoyed at the Law Offices of Hiepler and Hiepler. She also volunteered for Community Memorial Hospital Auxiliary as a baby cuddler in NICU and in the gift shop where in addition to being a cashier and volunteer manager, she was one of the shop’s best customers. She volunteered for Food Share, the Ventura County Fair, and the Rubicon Theater. She attended Our Lady of the Assumption, where she sang in the choir. She also added two great nephews, Blair Meehan and Rocco Koory, and a great niece, Anna Meehan, to her list of people to spoil. Angelina and Viola remained very close until Viola’s death in November 2022.
It’s difficult to write about Angelina’s life without naming her friends and family; she created community wherever she was. In the happy last year of her life, she made a new set of friends with her wonderful team of caregivers led by Maria Lupe Torres. At the end, she died peacefully, praying and singing in her house by the beach.
Family and friends are invited a Mass of Christian Burial to be celebrated by Fr. Leon Hutton, Saturday, September 16, 2023, at 12 Noon in Our Lady of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church, 3175 Telegraph Road, Ventura. Reception will follow at her residence on Devon Lane. Arrangements are under the direction of the JOSEPH P. REARDON FUNERAL HOME & CREMATION SERVICE, Ventura.