Anna Marie Strumolo Honored at St. Peter the Apostle

The township came together Friday morning to say a final farewell to Anna Marie Strumolo.  hosted a funeral mass for the longtime homemaker and community advocate, who  at Morristown Medical Center after a long illness. She was 80 years old.

The Newark native, born Anna Marie De John, married John Strumolo Sr. 63 years ago. The couple moved their young family to the Lake Hiawatha section of Parsippany in 1956.

With her family, Strumolo was a founding member of Saint Peter the Apostle church. One of the first Republicans in her family, she was active in local matters and served for more than three decades as a member of the Morris County Republican Committee. She also raised a family, including a son who followed her into politics, Parsippany-Troy Hills school board member Michael Strumolo.

Strumolo remembers his mother as a force with which to be reckoned.

"She could see all through fakes," he said. "I remember she was heavily involved with [St. Peter's] Rosary Society, and she came home one night and was beside herself. I was just a kid, but she was telling me about this situation at church and said to me that when there was a problem, you didn't whine about it. She said, 'Dammit, do something about it.'"

He also recalled with great humor that his mother was somewhat challenged behind a car's steering wheel.

"I swear I spent more money paying people off after she backed into them than I did for her cars," Strumolo said. "My mother went from driving a 1949 Oldsmobile with no reverse, so she never learned how to back up. I bought her a brand-new Cadillac in 1974 for about $7,100. Brand-spankin' new. Loaded with every option you could think of. When she would back into people, I would just tell them to give me the bill and instead of running to the insurance company, I would just pay for the damage. Finally, Mom comes to me and says, 'Son, in case you haven't figured it out, that damned car is too big for me.'"

In the following decades, he would provide his mother with ever smaller vehicles, finally ending with a yellow and black Geo Metro that Mrs. Strumolo called her "bumblebee car." The auto was outfitted with 12-inch tires.

"I would always keep an extra set of four of those little tires so that I could replace them when she would hit something," said Strumolo, who owns a Lake Hiawatha towing garage and gas station. "I still have a set now.

"My mother had a difficult life," her son said. "But she was a great mother. An excellent mother."