By Emily J. Minor
HYPOLUXO ISLAND — Lillian Martucci, a native of New York who loved travel, nature and the classic style of Grace Kelly, died Jan. 21 after a three-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. A beloved wife and mother, she was 83.
“She was a homemaker, but she never sat home,” said her daughter, Judi Hildebrandt, who lives in Wellington. “She taught us to see the world. In our eulogies, everybody just said she had such refinement and elegance and good taste and class.”
Born Dec. 9, 1929, in Mineola, N.Y., Mrs. Martucci stayed close to Long Island almost all her life, except, of course, when she was traveling. It was there that she met her husband, Frank, when she was just 15 years old.
“My mom was walking in a pair of penny loafers and neatly pressed shorts with bobby socks and my dad spotted her legs,” says Hildebrandt, recalling the famous family story of how her parents met. “I guess my dad said, ‘That’s the girl I’m going to marry,’ and they were together ever since.”
The Martuccis were married for 62 years when Mrs. Martucci lost her battle with the mind-crippling disease, and her husband cared for her well into the illness. For more than two years, her dad cared for her mother at the couple’s Hypoluxo Island home, Hildebrandt said. But about three months ago, it simply got to be too much.
“I looked at my dad and he was gray and pale and I said, ‘I’m not losing two parents to this disease,’” she said.
When Mrs. Martucci died, she was under in-patient care with Hospice. The family asks that any memorials be made to Hospice of Palm Beach County.
The Martuccis began coming to the area in the 1960s, and Hildebrandt said she and her sister, Gail Klewicki, can remember when there were only a few developments “with jungle in between.”
The sisters’ father and grandfather — who were New York developers — built La Renaissance condominium, at 3230 S. Ocean Blvd. From then on, the family spent many summers and winter vacations here.
Gail Klewicki lives on Hypoluxo Island, and her parents began living in their own home there full-time about seven years ago.
Besides her husband and two daughters, Mrs. Martucci is survived by two grandchildren and one great-grandchild. She was buried Jan. 23 at the South Florida National Cemetery.
While her mother’s death has, of course, been difficult, Hildebrandt said it’s also been a lovely time to reminisce. “She never worked, but she had so many facets to her,” Hildebrandt said. “I guess you could say she was a real Renaissance lady.”
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