Author Biography

Born on May 25, 1933 in Rochester, NY to an Italian-American family named Sasso, Irene DeSantis spent much of her childhood surrounded by her large extended family of cousins, aunts, and uncles who played a large part in her daily life. It was in the Jay-Child-Smith St. neighborhood that she met the boy who would become her future husband, Carlo DeSantis, when still in grade school. She graduated from Our Lady of Mercy High School in 1951, where she was a cheerleader and editor of the school newspaper. She went on to study nursing at St. Mary's Hospital School of Nursing. Following her graduation in 1954, she worked as a pediatric nurse at that same hospital. After Carlo and Irene married in 1955, she became a devoted mother to five children and excelled in that role for the rest of her life. Irene was a gifted writer and storyteller, artist, tennis player, skier, singer, pianist, gardener, cook, world traveler, and master pie maker, and shared all of these gifts with her family and friends. Her sense of adventure was great, and after she became a widow at age 58, she enjoyed travelling with friends throughout Europe and North America. In her seventies, she began taking an adult education writing class focused on writing memoirs. Through her classes, she completed stories about her life which she presented as Christmas gifts to her family and close friends. Irene always believed her greatest accomplishment was her family, and she was most content when all of her children and nine grandchildren were gathered together around her, usually laughing and bustling about the kitchen. Irene died on July 31, 2015 in Rochester, NY at the age of 82.

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