Matriarch

Services will be held today for Stephanie Jesiolowski, matriarch and community "cornerstone" who didn't fear taking a chance and, along with her husband, opened what might have been Bridesburg's first flower shop almost 50 years ago. The lifelong resident of Bridesburg died Thursday. She was 79. The Jesiolowskis opened their business, Ideal Florists, in 1950 in their home on Thompson Street near Orthodox, just a half block down the street from where "Stephie" was born and raised.

SOME MIGHT find a kind of irony in the fact that Mary Coleman's first job was at a school for the blind, because later in life she, too, lost her sight. Being visually challenged did not stop Mary from leading a full and long life, much of it devoted to serving her Baptist religion. Mary Coleman, a matriarch who could be counted on to provide spiritual sustenance to family and friends, died Oct. 8. She was 93 and lived in Southwest Philadelphia. She and her late twin brother, Joseph, were born in Robeson County, N.C., the last of the 10 children of John David and Sarah Currie.

Lucille Summers "Dootsie" Singleton, a former private duty nurse and seamstress who enjoyed her role as family matriarch, died Saturday. She was 75 and lived in North Philadelphia. "She enjoyed being the matriarch. Everyone loved Mrs. Dootsie. She'd give you her last, literally speaking, she'd borrow to help you," said Jessie Gaymon, a daughter. "My mother was outgoing and loving to all who knew her and she gave until she couldn't give anymore. " She said that once a friend of her mother's said there wouldn't be enough to outfit her eight-year-old for Easter.

Mae E. Forman, 86, who immigrated to Philadelphia from Russia with her family as a child and became the matriarch in her large extended family, died Tuesday in Los Angeles while visiting her daughter. A longtime former resident of the Northeast, she had lived for the last few years in Jenkintown. Mrs. Forman, who was the youngest of seven children, lived first in South Philadelphia. She attended South Philadelphia High School for two years and then enrolled at a commercial school and became a bookkeeper.

HOW DO you live to be 106? Well, follow the lead of Viola Waters. She shunned greasy foods, concentrated on fresh vegetables and had a daily drink of hot tea, which she believed removed impurities from the body. She certainly must have done something right, because not only did she live nearly seven years beyond the century mark, she was healthy and alert almost to the end. "Last June, she visited me in Strawberry Mansion and didn't want any help walking," said her granddaughter Donna M. Stoney.

There was no doubt who ran Rita Cermele's family. She did. "Momma enjoyed being in the role of the matriarch," said her son, Dominic, a former Traffic Court judge who now runs the city's Office of Administrative Review. "She was the boss. She controlled her family, though she did it kindly. " Cermele, a strong-willed woman in the South Philadelphia tradition, died yesterday at the age of 78. She was classic South Philly in other ways, too. She baked pies and bread, and took great pride in her "gravy," the downtown term for spaghetti sauce.

Mattie Adams, a retired seamstress and family matriarch, died Saturday. She was 98 and lived in Sharon Hill. "She was really a sweet person and friendly with her neighbors," said Mary Adams, a daughter-in-law. A resident of Sharon Hill since 1942, Adams had previously lived in West Philadelphia. Born in Atlanta, Ga., the former Mattie Butts graduated from high school in Macon. She married Ernest Martin in 1918 and was widowed at an early age. She married Matthew Adams in 1928.

ANYBODY WHO needed a place to stay knew that Joyce A. Dickerson would take them in. "She raised a lot of people, friends and family," said her great-granddaughter Verona "Rosie" Martin. "She was very loving, compassionate and feisty. " Joyce Dickerson, the loving matriarch of the Dickerson family, a former dietitian for the school district and an active churchwoman, died Sunday. She was 79 and lived in North Philadelphia. She was born in Philadelphia to Frank and Reola Dickerson, and attended public schools.

Edna Meredith Green, 91, the matriarch of a family of 11 children, 30 grandchildren and 28 great-grandchildren, died Monday at the Sacred Heart Medical Center in Chester. The former Edna Meredith Pendelton, formerly of Yeadon, was a religious, hard-working woman who did the wash by hand, faithfully tended her garden and dispensed homespun wisdom to anyone who needed it. She was also very superstitious. If Mrs. Green's nose was itchy, it wasn't hay fever. It was a sign that someone was coming to visit, her granddaughter, Lorraine Branham, recalled.

CORNELIA DODWELL was always looking for a place where she could show off her formal clothing, her furs, her fashionable dresses. And she found them. "She always had someplace to go," said her granddaughter, Maxine Williams. "She always got to some formal affair. " When Cornelia hosted Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, she always put on her classiest outfits. She didn't need much incentive to display her fashion sense. Cornelia Dodwell, known as "Neal" to family and friends, a longtime janitorial employee of the Philadelphia School District and a loving family matriarch, died Jan. 16. She was 93 and had lived for many years in South Philadelphia.

Evelyn Thomas Young had a passion for exposing her children to art, music and literature. But how do you do that when you don't have much money? You find out which musical productions are free, which museums do not charge admission, and, of course, there is the Free Library with its bountiful collections of books and regular educational programs. You don't have a car, so you spend a lot of time on buses. That's how she did it, and her three children gained a cultural education they wouldn't have had if their mother had been less resourceful.

CORNELIA DODWELL was always looking for a place where she could show off her formal clothing, her furs, her fashionable dresses. And she found them. "She always had someplace to go," said her granddaughter, Maxine Williams. "She always got to some formal affair. " When Cornelia hosted Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, she always put on her classiest outfits. She didn't need much incentive to display her fashion sense. Cornelia Dodwell, known as "Neal" to family and friends, a longtime janitorial employee of the Philadelphia School District and a loving family matriarch, died Jan. 16. She was 93 and had lived for many years in South Philadelphia.

ANYBODY WHO needed a place to stay knew that Joyce A. Dickerson would take them in. "She raised a lot of people, friends and family," said her great-granddaughter Verona "Rosie" Martin. "She was very loving, compassionate and feisty. " Joyce Dickerson, the loving matriarch of the Dickerson family, a former dietitian for the school district and an active churchwoman, died Sunday. She was 79 and lived in North Philadelphia. She was born in Philadelphia to Frank and Reola Dickerson, and attended public schools.

ERICA DEUSCHLE feels as if she lost her best friend. Her grandmother Vasso Stenta was more than a grandmother to her. "She was somebody I could confide in," Erica said. "I could tell her anything and get good advice. She was a great woman. " The former Vasso Legidakes, a woman proud of her Greek heritage, a true family matriarch who took pride in the accomplishments of her daughters and doted on her grandchildren, died Thursday. She was 75 and lived in Havertown, but had grown up in West Philadelphia.

The neighborhood around 55th Street and Lansdowne Avenue was a place of love and caring. It was a place where everyone knew everyone else and looked out for each other. "Naomi Edmond personified that love and nurturance," said a former neighbor, Jean Waites-Howard, an evangelist and social worker. "We knew every family in our neighborhood," Jean said. "There were enough kids that everyone played together and didn't have to venture out of our circle for playmates. " Naomi Edmond, who left a banking career to care for special-neeeds children at the Widener Memorial School, a devoted churchwoman and family matriarch, died Thursday.

HOW DO you live to be 106? Well, follow the lead of Viola Waters. She shunned greasy foods, concentrated on fresh vegetables and had a daily drink of hot tea, which she believed removed impurities from the body. She certainly must have done something right, because not only did she live nearly seven years beyond the century mark, she was healthy and alert almost to the end. "Last June, she visited me in Strawberry Mansion and didn't want any help walking," said her granddaughter Donna M. Stoney.

SOME MIGHT find a kind of irony in the fact that Mary Coleman's first job was at a school for the blind, because later in life she, too, lost her sight. Being visually challenged did not stop Mary from leading a full and long life, much of it devoted to serving her Baptist religion. Mary Coleman, a matriarch who could be counted on to provide spiritual sustenance to family and friends, died Oct. 8. She was 93 and lived in Southwest Philadelphia. She and her late twin brother, Joseph, were born in Robeson County, N.C., the last of the 10 children of John David and Sarah Currie.

"Easy Virtue" is a very strange adapation of a 1924 Noel Coward play - strange, in that the filmmakers appear to have expunged all the funny parts. What's left is a lot of fizz-free champagne about snooty fox hunters turning up their noses at the brash American bride brought home by the family's hard-partying son. Their quickie marriage is meant to be a scandal, but colonial eyes will search in vain for a downside to the arrangement. Buxom Jessica Biel is the Yankee aviatrix - famous, beautiful, celebrated, an obvious catch.

"No matter what happens, no matter what they do, don't talk, move, or make a sound," the tour guide says quietly, clutching his rifle, as a herd of breeding elephants lumbers closer to the safari group. "I will take care of it. " Sitting in a Land Rover in South Africa near the Mozambique border, Jane Berryman follows her guide's instructions, even as the matriarch elephant extends its trunk and sniffs her face. After a few seconds, it moves on, causing a German woman to whimper as the elephant grazes her arm. Despite her fear, the woman maintains her cool.

A darkly comic tale about a sex addict, starring the nimble Sam Rockwell, based on a novel by Chuck (Fight Club ) Palahniuk, with the sublime Kelly Macdonald in a doctor's lab coat and the wily Anjelica Huston as a dementia-stricken matriarch - how can that go wrong? But while Choke , adapted for the screen and directed by Clark Gregg, is by no means a disaster, it is disappointing - and oddly dull. Maybe it's the arch narrative voice-over, with Rockwell's Victor Mancini bowdlerizing chunks of the novel.