Jennie Rose LoPilato (Tambuzza) was born in Charlestown, MA and attended Charlestown High School. She began a career at The Prudential Building in Boston but soon after moving to Somerville, she married Emilio John and began to raise a family alongside a large, close Italian family on both sides.

Jennie was an excellent seamstress. After long days, she would still find time to make extraordinary curtains, bedspreads, and clothing from both beautiful fabrics and lowly scraps. In later years when the children were grown, she took her talents to the Jewelers Building in Boston and became a trusted member of the team at Barmakian.

Jennie's greatest love, without question, was her family.

Jennie was born to a family she adored and created a family she adored. A middle sister to Celia, the fiery, wise-cracking eldest, and Jo Ann, the boisterous and adventurous youngest, she was a natural peacemaker and keen observer of her loved ones.

Through her good heart and resilience, she balanced many roles in the family at any given moment. As a teenager, Jennie stepped in to care for her mother during a time of illness while also raising her younger sister. As a young bride, Jennie learned to meld her Sicilian cooking with that of her Italian mother-in-law, nourishing her family with pastas and roasts and Sunday sauce while also keeping an impeccable home.

When the family cottage on Plum Island was being sold, Jennie and Mel found a way to buy it in order to continue years of beach days full of sun, sand, homemade fried dough, painted seashells, and of course Sunday sauce. She never thought her meatballs measured up to her own mother's, but to this day, we are all trying to replicate hers.

Jennie's kitchen was the center of the household and a constant source of loving gestures. When her sons visited, she would slide them a clementine, an apple—a nod towards their father, who ran a fruit store in the North End for many years. When her daughter visited, she set out a coffee cup in front of her customary seat.

When her grandchildren were small, she invented a game called "Presenting" where they were instructed to step out from around a corner and show whatever their little bodies could do. She and Mel would sit in their kitchen and "play" this game for endless, surely mind-numbing hours.

As her family grew, she stocked her bathroom full of toys for little ones' baths. When her grandson stole one—a 3-foot long rubber snake—and hid it in her fridge, she was an incredible sport about it.

She shocked her family once or twice a year by announcing a deep insight into a family member. She'd say "Oh, he's smitten with this girl" or "No, she won't agree to that" and the room would implode with laughter. We never remembered telling her these most private feelings, but she seemed to know them all the same, keeping them secret until it was time to face facts.

When her family started to help her with things, she complained that she could do it herself and then said "thank you."

In describing Jennie to others, it was difficult not to feel like describing an ideal matriarch: a doting Italian grandma whose meatballs are to die for, who took immaculate care of her children and elders, who dearly and sincerely loved her in-laws, who regularly referred to herself as "the luckiest grandmother in the world."

For all those reasons and more, being loved by her often felt too good to be true.

Beloved wife of the late Emilio J. LoPilato. Devoted mother of Ralph LoPilato (Denise), Mary Ann Gruenberg (the late Peter), and Joseph LoPilato (Christine). Cherished grandmother of Matthew LoPilato (Jessica), Christopher Gruenberg, Katherine Gruenberg Lemire (Don), Victoria Gruenberg, Michael LoPilato, Marisa LoPilato, Alison LoPilato, and the late Jeffery LoPilato. Loving great-grandmother of Milo Peter Lemire, Emilia Rose LoPilato, and Ava Grace LoPilato. Also survived by many loving nieces and nephews.

Calling Hours will be held in the George L. Doherty Funeral Home 855 Broadway (Powder House Sq.) Thursday morning, March 16th from 9:00AM to 11:00AM. Followed by a funeral mass celebrated in St. Ann Church 399 Medford St. Somerville at 11:30AM. Relatives and friends are invited to attend. Services will conclude with interment at St. Michael Cemetery, Boston.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in Jennie's name to St. Jude Children's Research and the The Ellie Fund at MGH .