BY ALBERT AMATEAU | Rose Marie Barbieri, a lifelong resident of Greenwich Village who was born in the neighborhood, as was her father before her, died Mon., Nov. 24, at her home in the Village. She was 85.
Her son, Glenn, told The Villager that she had been vigorous until she became ill seven weeks ago.
“When I was very young and going to P.S. 41, she became a volunteer at the school and remained active until I went to St. Anthony’s School in the fifth grade,” her son said. “She then volunteered at St. Anthony’s and was active in the parish all her life.”
A resident of Washington Square Village for the past 15 years, she live most of her life on W. Third St.
“Her father, Charles Maravolo, known as Buck, owned a bar and grill on W. Third St. during the Depression,” her son said. “Her mother, Rose, was from Mott St.”
Rose Marie had two brothers, Phillip and Anthony, both deceased.
“Anthony was well known as Tony Marlo, the porter at the White Horse on Hudson St.,” Glenn said.
Rose Marie Maravolo went to school first at Our Lady of Pompeii and then to P.S. 3. She went to Washington Irving when it was an all-girls high school and married her childhood sweetheart, Robert Barbieri, from Prince St.
“She put him through college,” her son said. “My father used to say he was the first person in his family to go to college and it was all because of her,” he added.
Robert, a computer consultant, died in 1998.
Rose Marie started working as a secretary in a medical advertising agency and rose in the company to become a supervisor.
“Later she worked as a substitute teacher at nursery schools in the Village, including First Presbyterian,” Glenn said. “She was really good with children and was very proud of her teaching career.
“She was witness to a lot of changes in the Village,” he said. “She remembered the Sixth Ave. El that turned east on Third St. and went downtown on West Broadway.
She was into fashion and loved to dress, even after she became ill.”
In addition to her son, a nephew and a niece survive, as does an aunt, Flo Amaroso, a Village resident, now 95. A daughter, Roberta, died in 1999.
The wake was at Perrazzo Funeral Home, 199 Bleecker St., on Nov. 28, and the funeral was Nov. 29 at St. Anthony’s Church.
Burial was in Calvary Cemetery.
