Mary Louise Spagnoli Adamian
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Published in July 2024
Mary Louise Spagnoli Adamian died peacefully on July 6th, 2024 at Novant Matthews Medical Center surrounded by people she loved and who loved her back. Her last years had been complicated by a panoply of medical challenges, but these obstacles never succeeded in dimming her buoyant optimism and joie de vivre.
Mary Louise Spagnoli was born on May 10th, 1931 at 450 East 185th Street in an Italian enclave in the Bronx where she lived with her immediate family as well as an assortment of aunts, uncles, and cousins for the next 23 years. She was the youngest of the three children of Abramo and Jennie Spagnoli. Her older brothers, Armando and Gino, always held an extremely important place in Mary’s heart. The summers of her childhood were spent with extended family in an idyllic rural setting in Milan in the Hudson Valley, a few hours north of New York City. She attended P.S. 85 and P.S. 45 in the Bronx. She loved to sing and her music teacher, Miss Benjamin, encouraged her to try out for the High School of Music and Art in Harlem, where she was accepted. She later attended Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart where she received a Bachelor’s Degree in Music. After graduating, she worked as a representative and union steward for Bell Telephone in New York. Her family left the Bronx and moved upstate. In an effort to be closer to her parents, she accepted a job as a teacher at the Astor Home for Children in Rhinebeck, New York, a residential home providing mental health services for children from the New York City Public School System suffering from a broad range of emotional difficulties. She became actively involved in the Mid-Hudson Young Adult Catholic Club. It was during her tenure as the club’s vice-president that she met Russell Adem, a young Armenian immigrant who was the club’s president and who would eventually become her husband.
Mary and Russell were married on January 26th, 1963. After their marriage, Mary was integral in convincing Russell to legally change his family name from Adem to Adamian to reflect the Armenian heritage that his family had been forced to hide in his native Turkey. In the coming years, they had five children. Russell was an electrical engineer employed by I.B.M. The acronym behind the company’s name (International Business Machines) was often jokingly referred to as shorthand for “I’ve Been Moved” by its employees. Mary, Russell, and family did relocate numerous times due to the vagaries of Russell’s employment: from Poughkeepsie, New York to Red Hook, New York, to Charlotte, North Carolina, and to Tokyo, Japan. Mary happily embraced the chaotic routine of being a stay-at-home mom to their five young children. Although she spent the next years occupied with the task’s concomitant and never insignificant obligations, she still found the time to teach Sunday school, develop a deep interest in homeopathic medicine and nurture two very serious artistic hobbies, sumi-e (Japanese brush-stroke painting) and ceramics, both of which were essential creative outlets for her. Mary’s father, Abramo, was a professional chef and Mary developed an incredible proficiency in the kitchen. She took great pride in preparing the traditional foods of her parents’ Italian culture and joyfully assimilated the culinary traditions of Russell’s Armenian heritage. She bequeathed this habit of utilizing food and family meals as a vehicle for love and sharing to all of her children and grandchildren. Although Mary and Russell initially met through a Catholic youth organization, they gradually grew disenchanted with the church’s dogma and casual misogyny and homophobia. While Russell’s reaction led him on the path to agnosticism, Mary’s spiritual quest caused her to seek out a more tolerant, accepting, and welcoming religious community, something she found in the Unitarian Universalist Church. Russell died in 1997 leaving Mary alone in the large house on Wheeler Drive in Charlotte that had served as a base of operations for them and their children for several decades. Over the years, Mary welcomed an assortment of friends and travelers to stay with her in her spacious abode for varying periods of time. Eventually, the imposed solitude and the requirements of maintaining the house became more than she was ready to undertake. After hemming and hawing about the next step in her life, Mary decided to relocate to Overture Cotswold, an active seniors complex located not far from her previous home. There she found what she always appreciated most—a circle of new friends to eat, drink, and play with and to care for one another. She and her new friends likened it to college dorm living without the exams. The Overture community provided Mary with a social safety net which was greatly appreciated by her children as her health struggles mounted in her final years.
She is survived by and will be deeply missed by her children and their partners: Stephen Adamian and his partner, Claudia Borgonovo, of Quebec City, Canada; David Adamian and his wife, Lynne Carvalho Adamian, of Cambridge, Massachusetts; Jean Adamian of Charlotte, North Carolina; John Adamian and his wife, Jenny Pyke, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Monica Adamian and her husband, David Stowe, of Mint Hill, North Carolina. She also leaves behind eleven adoring grandchildren: Jennifer James of Charlotte, North Carolina; Gabriel Adamian presently of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Clara Adamian and her husband, John Miller, of Toronto, Canada; Nathaniel Adamian of Cambridge, Massachusetts; Michael Russell Salmi and his fiancée, Bailey McFee, of Waynesville, North Carolina; Louis Adamian of Cambridge, Massachusetts; Eleanor Adamian of Cambridge, Massachusetts; Corrina Stowe of Raleigh, North Carolina; Bernadette Adamian of Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Lucia Stowe of Mint Hill, North Carolina; and Keith Adamian of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
A memorial service for Mary will be held Sunday, July 21, 2024 at 2:00 PM at McEwen Funeral Service-Mint Hill Chapel, 7428 Matthews-Mint Hill Road, Mint Hill, NC 28227, followed by a reception. Comfortable and colorful attire is encouraged. Feel free to wear something Mary would enjoy or appreciate.
In lieu of flowers, contributions in Mary’s memory may be made to Compassionate Care ALS, https://ccals.org/donate.