Peter Robert Sforza

Peter Sforza was on this Earth for nearly a century. He was born in 1927, the same year that Charles Lindbergh flew the first solo transatlantic flight. He died in 2025 as astronauts were preparing to leave the International Space Station. He was 97.

His mom, Teresa, was the Bronx's best cook, and his father, Dominick, was an immigrant from Italy who supported his family by delivering ice long before there were refrigerators. Peter worked on the ice truck when he was still a teenager, actually driving the thing before he had a license, earning nickel tips for hauling ice blocks up steep flights of stairs in Bronx apartment buildings. He had two sisters - Marie and Clara - and a younger brother, Donald. Jet engines could not match their decibel level when they were together.

Peter was just 16 or so when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He talked his parents into letting him join the Navy. He visited China and Japan, sailed around the tip of South America, was on deck watching when an atomic bomb was tested at Bikini. His mother lit candles and scuttled down the church aisle on her knees, beseeching the heavens to make sure he could have children someday.

It worked. He met Marie Vanacore, a telephone operator, at a dance hall. They cha-cha-ed, married in 1956, and had two children, Dominick John and Teresa Rose. Peter was a bagger at the A&P, got his GED and soon went to work for Bell Telephone, working his way up to engineer even though he never went to college. He harbored disdain for the soft college types that came after him but recently confessed that "No one worked hard for the phone company." Fishing was one of his favorite pastimes - even though he didn't much like fish - and a phone company strike provided enough overtime for Peter to buy his own boat. He named it "Lucky Strike," and the family spent most summer weekends on the water. 

That son, Dominick, also joined the Navy, then became an IT guy on Wall Street. His daughter, Teresa, went off to college and became a journalist. Peter and Marie went on cruises to the Bahamas and on bus tours of Italy. Shortly before Marie died in 2001, Teresa married Jeff, and there are two granddaughters, Xia and Fu. Peter regularly sent them giant Priority Mail boxes stuffed with cookies and candy and writing pads and pens and calendars accumulated from charities that sent swag to wheedle donations out of seniors. He rarely fell for any of that. 

He did, however, have a singular gift for telling everyone how to do everything, often at great volume, often when he had no particular expertise in that area. Young Xia was quite perplexed when he instructed her on how to hold her drumsticks when she was taking drum lessons - in direct opposition to what her teacher taught her, and even though Peter never played an instrument in his life.

Maybe it was because he loved music. The big bands made the soundtrack of his life, and, quite against type really, he loved opera and went to the Met and had stacks of CDs from "Don Giovanni" to "Toscana" and "Marriage of Figaro." When he visited Teresa, one of his favorite outings was going to Steamers, the nearby jazz club. He grew quite hard of hearing as he grew older, but refused to wear hearing aids.

After Marie died, he left New York and moved with his son Dominick to Delray Beach, Florida. He loved that there were buses and shows and clubs there; he rode the buses, but never went to a show or joined a club. He started to cook, channeling his late wife Marie as chef extraordinaire. His meatballs were the stuff of legends.

As the years went by and Peter's health began to fail, Dominick became his full-time, live-in caregiver. They were constantly arguing - but, deep down, formed their own closed-circuit universe and were best buds. As the end grew nearer, the irascible Peter grew milder and a wee bit quieter, thanking Dominick often for his care. 

A few nights before Peter died, he had some moments of lucidity. Teresa asked if there was anything he wanted to talk about. "You don't know, all the things going through my mind," he said. "I've had a good life. No one ever wanted for anything. The best things I did were your mother, your brother and you." He reminisced about vacations they had taken, the wonderful neighbors who had become lifelong friends. He apologized for getting sick. "Pops, you didn't get sick," she said. "You got 97."

Peter died at 1:45 a.m. on Monday, March 17, 2025. St. Patrick's Day. His loved ones will always toast him on that day with green beer. He is survived by his sister, Clara Gizzi; son and daughter, Dominick and Teresa; son-in-law, Jeffrey Light; granddaughters, Xia and Fu Sforza Light; sister-in-laws, Georgette Valle and Cathy Vanacore; brother-in-law, Steve Vanacore; and a plethora of friends, nieces and nephews.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to Trust Bridge Hospice Care (https://trustbridge.com/).

Visitation will be held on Wednesday, March 26, 2025, from 4:30 pm to 7:30 pm at Flynn Funeral & Cremation Memorial Centers, 139 Stage Road, Monroe, NY 10950.

A Funeral Mass will be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday, March 27, 2025, at St. Columba R.C. Church, 27 High Street, Chester, NY 10918.

 Burial will follow at 12:45 pm at Saint Raymond's Cemetery, 2600 Lafayette Avenue, Bronx, NY 10465.

The family entrusted Peter's care to the Flynn family and Flynn Funeral & Cremation Memorial Center's staff.

Please feel free to extend a condolence or share a memory for the family.