Stella Martha Henderson

Stella Martha Henderson died February 19th at her home in Alexandria, Va., after a quiet celebration of life in her last weeks, sharing moments with kids, grandkids, great grandkids, in-laws, and longtime friends. The stories, laughs, and a few tears – mostly in person, but also in phone calls and letters – looked a lot like the open-door, food’s-on-the-table welcome Gram Stella always lived by. But as she neared 90 and weakened, the visits were managed by her around-the-clock caregivers and companions, daughters Stella, Lorraine, and Diane. The cause of death was breast cancer, which Gram Stella had lived through once before, in her mid-70s. Stella was born on Feb. 22, 1934, in a house on a hillside in Turtle Creek, Pa. She arrived on George Washington’s birthday, and her first-generation Italian-American parents gave her the middle name Martha to honor the nation’s original first lady. She was the youngest of five children born to Mary and Joseph Ruggiero. But the home was run by her maternal grandmother, who had come from a seaside town in Italy, spoke no English, and made ends meet by turning part of the home into a corner store, and part into a boarding house for others seeking a foothold in the hills outside of Pittsburgh. Stella and her mom and dad and brothers and sisters, along with a reluctant Big Grandma, eventually moved into their own brick house built by Stella’s father, himself an immigrant from southern Italy. Its open front porch overlooked the railroad lines and smokestacks from distant steel plants that for decades employed much of the region, including some in Gram Stella’s family. In high school she met a non-Italian boy from Braddock, a town near one of those steel mills, who would take the streetcar to visit. When he stayed a bit late, Grandpa Joe would bang on the floor and announce: “Scandinavian, go home!” At 17 Stella left for nursing school at what was then Seton Hill College in Greensburg, Pa., and after graduation married the “Scandinavian,” Frederick Mark Henderson, who had used the Air Force ROTC to attend Duquesne University. Their family grew as they traveled from bases in Texas, Ohio, and New York, with stops in Pittsburgh, before settling in Northern Virginia, where the last of their children were born. Her husband, Fred, died in 2013, and her youngest child, Chris, in 2022. Gram Stella is survived by her children Mark, Lorraine (Pat), Tim (Ann), Greg (Juliana), Fred (Marietta), Diane (Toz), and Stella (Paul); grandchildren Sean, Ryan (Lillie), Dominick (Liz), Ciana (Gil), Capri, Roman (Teresa), Georgia, Jake, Amelia, Alexander, Isaiah, and Lucy; and great-grandchildren Michael, Emmeline, Leo, Carolina, and Luca. Her brothers and sisters, Rose Cardamone, John Ruggiero, Joseph Ruggiero, and Helen DeStefano, have all passed away. But she stayed in the lives of many nephews, nieces, grandnephews, grandnieces, and other relatives, near-relatives, and dear friends. When most of her own kids were grown Stella worked as a home healthcare nurse for several patients, who became friends. And she was a regular and a volunteer at St. Lawrence Catholic Church for the last half century. She especially enjoyed bringing communion to the homebound. Stella could often be found at a grandchild's lacrosse, or football, or soccer game, even the cold and rainy ones, and even when her eyesight was so bad she couldn’t tell the teams apart. Or at a dance show, baptism, birthday gathering, whatever the occasion. Her faithfulness extended to friends – whose number somehow seemed to grow as the years passed. If you found yourself in the Hayfield neighborhood in recent years and passed what looked like a small bundle of scarves wielding a pair of walking sticks and shuffling in the street while sporting outsized sunglasses, all under a loud hat, you saw Gram Stella. Her daily walk could take hours, with stops for coffee, or in summer the special delivery of loose-leaf lettuce from the backyard garden. At home she could be found sitting out front near the flowering white dogwood planted in memory of Pap, and the gnome garden memorial that celebrated Chris. Soaking up sun, and the sounds of the latest generation of the kids of Crawford Court. Gram was on oxygen in the final six weeks as the cancer advanced, but stayed in her living room to be part of the mix. She made it to the kitchen table for dinner every night until her last. She was ready to go home, as she said, comfortable, at peace, and with the people and caregivers she wanted. Gram Stella had said her goodbyes, often with the simple words, “I love you,” and was looking forward to what’s next. If you’d like to do something in Gram Stella’s honor she suggests a donation to the National Right to Life, the Glenmary Home Missioners, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, or St. Lawrence Catholic Church.

Tributes

Stella Martha Henderson

February 22, 1934 - February 19, 2024