Sonya was born in South River, NJ where she grew up with her siblings Vera, May, Leona, John, Stella and Mickey. At South River High School she was very active in sports and was elected to the Captains Club where the captains made up the teams to compete with other schools. There was volleyball, softball, basketball and calisthenics. She also belonged to a bowling league and went roller and ice skating.
She was a member of the church choir and high school chorus where she was one of two students chosen from each county. After school from 4 to 6 PM she attended the church school where she studied Russian and learned about religion.
Sonya went to Metropolitan Hospital School of Nursing on Welfare Island in New York now known as Roosevelt Island. She took science classes for 6 months at Bellevue Hospital. The students had to be on the ferry from the island to Manhattan at 6 AM. She lived at Bellevue for 6 months while studying psychiatry. This is where the movie “The Snakepit” was made. She also attended night classes at Herbert Lehman College. As part of their training she worked at Willard Parker for infectious diseases during the polio epidemic. There she did the Kenny Packs to both children and adult patients. Many of the patients were in iron lungs.
She met her husband Guido through a classmate on a blind date while he was a student at NYU. Her first job after passing the state board exam as a registered nurse was at Mount Sinai Hospital. She lived in Manhattan with a classmate, in a fifth floor walk-up apartment. During her days off she enjoyed all of the tourist attractions. She worked her way up to become Head Nurse in surgery. When she married she moved to the Bronx and took a job at Montefiore Hospital, becoming Head Nurse in just a few weeks. She worked in multiple departments including the ER, surgery, medicine, surgical medicine and neurosurgery ICU, and later worked in the employee health service at Albert Einstein Hospital and Montefiore. She retired in 2001 when Guido became ill and cared for him until his passing.
Sonya and Guido enjoyed traveling together, visiting Italy four times, including Sicily. Lucky were the few who were able to break free of the generic tour and experience Italy as natives, as Sonya and Guido often did, due to Guido’s mastery of the Italian language. She and Guido also visited Canada, Mexico and multiple US states, including Alaska, where they saw the Northern Lights.
Sonya enjoyed reading, gardening, embroidery, crewel, needlepoint, knitting and crocheting. She also loved to cook and bake- her specialties included, stuffed cabbage, lasagna, cheesecake and carrot cake and her son-in-law Ken’s favorite- beef stew.
She is survived by her daughter Susan and sons Michael and Peter, daughters-in-law Joanne and Paula, son-in-law Ken, and sister Stella.
She was a mother and friend to all and will be sorely missed. May she rest in peace.