Mildred ‘Millie’ (Sansalone) D’Ottavio – Obituary
Mildred “Millie” (Sansalone) D’Ottavio, 102, of Vineland passed away on November 24, 2022 at Inspira Medical Center in Vineland. She was born in Malaga to the late Fred and Rosa (Pelle) Sansalone. Millie was a homemaker and seamstress. Before retiring, she was a supervisor for South Jersey Clothing Company. She was a member of Sacred Heart Church, the Rosary Altar Society, a Girl Scout leader and a member of the Franklin Township Senior Club. She enjoyed gardening, crocheting, hemstitching and reading. Most of all she loved being with her family. She especially enjoyed having cookies and milk ready when her grandsons came to her house after school. They sometimes brought their friends too. She was everyone’s grandmom. Millie will be greatly missed. She is survived by her daughter, Joan D’Ottavio; grandsons, David Tomasso and Robert Tomasso (Dawn); two great-grandsons, Alexander and Ethan Tomasso; brother, William Sansalone and many nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her husband, Angelo D’Ottavio; brothers, Joseph and Dominic Sansalone; and her sisters, Mary Schiavone, Frances Gleason, Anna Beckwith and Jean Ivins. A church visitation will be held on Wednesday, November 30, 2022 from 10:30am to 11:30am followed by a funeral mass at 11:45 am from Christ The Good Shepherd Parish – Church Of Sacred Heart, 1010 East Landis Avenue, Vineland. Interment will follow in St Mary’s Cemetery- Vineland. ARRANGEMENTS are under the supervision of Rone Funeral Service, 1110 East Chestnut Avenue, Vineland, NJ 08360
My Late Sister’s Early Years in Malaga Editor’s Note : The December 1, 2022, printed issue of The Sentinel of Gloucester County newspaper contained the obituary of Mildred D’Ottavio (1919-2022). She was born Mildred (Millie) Sansalone in Malaga, where she grew up on Dutch Mill Road. Written below, Millie’s brother, William (Bill) Sansalone of N. Bethesda, Maryland, shares some memories about her in these next paragraphs.
If we could turn the clock back to the world that existed when Millie was born103 years ago, we would hardly recognize it. Tin lizzies (Henry Ford’s Model Ts) were bouncing over rough, unpaved roads; almost half the U.S. population * lived on family farms; and, in Malaga, Millie’s immigrant parents were using hatchets and pickaxes to clear 35 acres of wooded land for fruit and vegetable production. Millie spent her formative years (the 1920s and 1930s) on the homeplace. She attended the old Malaga School, built in the19th -century ** and comprised of only four classrooms. As a teenager, she worked on the farm after school and during summers, helping the family plant, weed, and harvest field crops. The first killing frost in October ended field work, and Millie turned her attention to making clothes and household items with her family’s Singer sewing machine. It had a treadle, operated by foot, and was akin to those in most farmhouses across per-electric America. At age 19, Millie’s sewing skills led to employment as a seamstress in a Vineland clothing shop. There, she met Angelo D’Ottavio, and they married at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church of Malaga in 1941. Their marriage lasted close to five decades, ending with his death in1989. He was a good man and a good husband. Contributing to their enduring marriage was Millie’s ability to handle, with aplomb, multiple roles. These included being a wife; mother; homemaker; and, at her workplace, a supervisory seamstress. By today’s standards, Millie’s formal schooling in Malaga was limited. She nonetheless became an insatiable reader of newspapers, magazines, and books. For her, learning was a life-long endeavor. Every so often, she would mail me an insightful article. Millie’s missives never failed to brighten my day. My sister’s values live on through her descendants, and all who knew and loved her.
footnotes: *The total U.S. population was 106.0 million in1920 (U.S. Census). **Malaga’s first schoolhouse was on Route 40/47, where the alcoholic beverage store is located. That 19 th -century school was replaced, in 1928, by the six-room school that was located on the east side of the Malaga railroad bridge until 2005. It was demolished then to make room for roadway that forms the present “jug handle” near the bridge.