By Rebecca Goodman
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Mrs. Kielty

One of the highlights of Marie Theresa Melchiorre Kielty's childhood was being selected to sing at Cincinnati's Music Hall in her school Christmas concert.

For a little Italian immigrant girl who spoke no English, it surely made her feel she belonged in her new country.

The longtime College Hill resident was 83 when she died of heart failure Saturday in Grand Rapids, Mich.

She was 6 when her family arrived at Ellis Island in New York, after three weeks on the ocean liner Duca d'Aosta. They came from a small village called Atri, in the Abruzzo province amid the Apennines Mountains of Italy.

The family settled on Main Street in Over-the-Rhine. They were "just honest, hard-working people - just so concentrated on their families and helping others," said Mrs. Kielty's son, Robert Kielty of Paradise Valley, Ariz.

No one in the family spoke English, but Marie Theresa was enrolled at Taft Elementary School.

She grew up doing piecework that her father - a tailor - brought home in the evening. Later she became a seamstress in a shop, sewing during the day and attending classes at the old Woodward High School at night.

She met Hugh Kielty at Woodward. She later married him, and they took up residence on Sycamore Hill.

In the late 1930s, Mrs. Kielty and her three brothers opened Hilltop Parkview Market on Auburn Avenue. They added a dry-goods and a dry-cleaning store and operated apartment buildings nearby.

When World War II came, Mrs. Kielty volunteered to sew uniforms for the troops while her brothers served in the armed forces. One of them - Robert - died at Okinawa.

The siblings operated their businesses until the late 1970s.

Food was an important part of Mrs. Kielty's heritage, and her mother taught her to make pasta - a specialty of Abruzzo. She passed the art on to her daughters and daughter-in-law.

She also made pizza. "All the kids in the neighborhood would come over and want to have pizza on Friday and Saturday night," her son recalled.

Mrs. Kielty's husband died in 1973. In 1982, she made a trip back to Atri.

She divided her last 20 years between Arizona - where she canned olives and showed her grandchildren how to care for fig, pomegranate and citrus trees - and Michigan, where she retreated during the hottest months. She also kept her home in College Hill - where she had lived for 45 years and tended rose and herb gardens - until last year.

In addition to her son, survivors include: two daughters, Julia Pennekamp of Blue Ash and Sheila Bokenkotter of Grand Rapids; nine grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Visitation is 10 a.m. Saturday followed by Mass of Christian burial at Good Shepherd Church, 8815 E. Kemper Road in Montgomery.

Memorials: Over-the-Rhine Soup Kitchen, c/o Church of the Assumption, 2622 Gilbert Ave., Cincinnati 45206.

E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com