Angela Magnifico DeBoer

Angela (Angelina, or “Andy”) Magnifico DeBoer left this world just shy of her century mark, passing from natural causes (after a somewhat successful bout with coronavirus) on June 9, 2020. She was preceded in death by husband Bernhard DeBoer (d. 1982) after 34 years of marriage, as well as seven siblings (Ernest, John, Victor, and Teresa Magnifico; Lena G. Tucillo, Ann Pambello, and Nell Castelli). She is survived by niece Barbara Pambello and nephews Louis Pambello, Armand and Louis Castelli, as well as a handful of Baltimore relatives, including Kathy Ely and JoAnn Klatt. She would also want us to recognize and give special thanks for longtime and dedicated caregiver Diane Calvitto, of Nutley, NJ.
Angela was born on January 13, 1921, in Hoboken, NJ, to Italian immigrants Matthew (Matteo) and Matilda (nee Mussellino) Magnifico. She graduated from A.J. Demarest High School in January 1940, which she celebrated, she tells us on the program, with an “enormous corsage of orchids—two to be exact.” She had already developed her love of operas and musicals, appearing in the chorus of both The Mikado and Gondoliers as a student, decades before she enjoyed many seasons as a regular subscriber to New York’s Metropolitan Opera. (With “good seats” going for a mere $25.) Always stylish, she loved her job in a travel business on New York’s Fifth Avenue. She made good on that experience with global trips, sailing on the Queen Mary and she loved her bucket list trip to Italy. The Bow & Arrow Manor was a favorite dinner spot.
She married Bernie in 1948, and joined him in running their magazine distribution business, B. DeBoer Inc. in Nutley, NJ. They provided high quality small-run periodicals, with numerous literary and academic titles, to newsstands throughout NYC, until they sold the business in the late seventies. Although Bernie died in 1982, she still had her beloved poodle Suzette, always at her side. She never missed her morning calls to niece Barbara, and she would routinely send care packages to her in the group home. Though she spent her final years in a nursing home, she still maintained that beautiful skin, style, and smile almost to the end.
We will celebrate Angela with a private memorial later in the year; please offer your own prayers on her behalf in the meantime. Contributions in her name can be sent to the Association for the Multiple Impaired Blind, Inc., 35 Beaverson Blvd., Lions Head Office Park, Building #13, Brick, NJ 08723. www.AMIB.net.
Arrangements by O’Boyle Funeral Home, Bloomfield. www.oboylefuneralhome.com