Aida Bergamini, born and bred in the Village where she raised her family on Bedford St., died Dec. 27 at New York University Medical Center at the age of 85. She had been diagnosed with cancer, said her daughter, Susan Scullin.
A frequent visitor to the Caring Community Senior Center at Our Lady of Pompei Church for the past 20 years, Aida (named for the heroine of the Verdi opera) was an enthusiastic dancer. “She was one of the people who made the Village the Village,” said her daughter.
When her children were going to elementary school, she became active in the parents association of P.S. 8, then a school on King St., where she served as president, and later joined the P.S. 41 Parents Association.
Born to Leticia and Oreste Carboneri, immigrants from Luca, Italy, she went to St. Joseph’s School on Washington Pl. Her two sisters and her brother also had names taken from opera. “There was Aunt Gioconda [named for the heroine of another opera] and Aunt Asmara [the city where Aida came from] and then there was Amletto — that’s ‘Hamlet’ in Italian, from another opera — we called him Uncle Blackie,” her daughter recalled.
In 1945, Aida married Henry Bergamini, a Villager who worked for the Parks Department. The couple settled on Bedford St. where they raised their daughter, now a resident of Peter Cooper Village, and their son, Robert, of Brooklyn. Henry Bergamini died in 1985 at the age of 72.
In addition to her son and daughter, three grandsons survive. Perazzo Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements. Contributions may be made in her memory to Caring Community. The funeral was Dec. 31 at Our Lady of Pompei Church and burial was in Calvary Cemetery in Queens.
