Mary Caroline DePoli

On February 25th the extraordinary matriarch of our large extended family passed away just shy of her 97th birthday. She died with the same underlying strength, grace and dignity with which she lived.

Mary was born in Detroit to Angelina and James Dalla Vecchia in 1924. She was one of seven children. By the age of 5 years old she had lost two brothers to meningitis and influenza. She lost her father at a young age and became responsible as the eldest to help the family survive, putting her own ambitions on hold.  Despite working and helping to maintain a household full of siblings, Mary continued her own education at night school and worked in the insurance and real estate industries at a time when women were not often welcomed. 

She married the love of her life in 1950, John Lido DePoli. She was proud of her marriage, children, home and community. She lived in Dearborn her entire life.  Family was her highest value and she was devoted to her four children, grandchildren and beloved nieces and nephews. She encouraged finding and loving meaningful work, and acting as an advocate for those less fortunate throughout her life. She was very interested in and acted in community politics to protect fairness and justice and maintain educational quality in Dearborn Schools and politics on a national level. She adopted a "nom de plume" to allow her voice to advocate and speak freely while protecting her advocacy from negatively impacting others. She returned to college after her children were grown and started a new career working in and improving accuracy in the field of medical transcription.

Mary was always a voracious reader and wordsmith. She slayed in scrabble and other word games and only days before her passing was reading two dense books one about Italian History and the other about how to cope in our electronic world today to hang on to what is important in such a world. She was a great dancer and especially enjoyed big band era music, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.  She loved the opera, the "haunting" melodies of Puccini, the poetry of Emily Dickenson, the wonders of nature, the sun and the sea.

She was so proud of her Italian ancestry and what that represented to her. Fortitude in all things, culture in all of its forms, music, art, education, literature, intellectual discourse with a social conscience, cooking and above all, love, were the values it represented to her and what she lived by. Her love and devotion to family was paramount. With few resources she made sure that her family was well educated and exposed to art, music, nature and culture in all of its forms. 

Though she had seen so much adversity in her life, wars, epidemics like polio, poverty, violence, personal loss, she continued to approach every single day with optimism and gratefulness and generosity. She marveled at technology, space travel and everything new in the world. She said she was " hanging around to see how everything would turn out". She had a confidence in human nature that in the end, the world will do right. The life perspective that she gave her beloved grandchildren cannot be matched.

There is a saying in Italian "fa una bella figura" that she instilled in the next generation. Mary lived it. She was beautiful every day, her hair done, red nail polish and Bassano Sunset lipstick. The concept is often translated as making a good impression. Mary believed that this is to portray on the outside, what is within us. Taking care to look good is out of respect for others. It is about maintaining one's personal dignity and integrity through adhering to the values of respect, honesty, and doing a good job no matter how small the task. It is sharing the best of what you have to offer, always, be it your work, resources or as her father used to say, "adding more water to the soup", so that there was enough to share with whoever needed it. These things were not spoken about, just accomplished, modestly. 

Mary's indomitable spirit, faith, optimism and humor grounded our family, our community and our world .  We will miss her daily presence but the values we carry forth will continue in their small way to continue to make the world good.

Mary Caroline DePoli (nee Dalla Vecchia) passed away February 23, 2021 just three days shy of her 97th birthday. Beloved wife of the late John. Loving mother of John, Patricia, Michael DePoli and Anita (Alan) Ankenbauer. Dear grandmother of Olivia and Evan. She is also survived by many loving nieces and nephews. Memorial donations may be made to St. Kateri Church.