Phyllis Bocco of family funeral home

While working for a military supply agency in South Philadelphia, Phyllis Ariano decided in 1949 to take Italian language classes in Center City.

Her parents, while Italian American, did not speak the language and she felt the need to learn, said son Joseph C. Bocco Jr.

In those classes, she met Joseph C. Bocco Sr., who needed the language to speak more easily to the Italian immigrants who would be looking to him as a funeral director.

For three years, while he studied mortuary science and apprenticed at a South Jersey funeral home, they courted. In June 1952, just as he was opening his Bocco Funeral Home in Camden, they wed at St. Monica Church in South Philadelphia.

On Monday, Feb. 22, Phyllis Ariano Bocco, 93, a business manager until 2000 for the Bocco Funeral Home, now in Cherry Hill, died at her residence in the home.

Mrs. Bocco grew up near 20th and Ritner Streets, where her father, Michael, operated a barbershop, her son said.

"Aunts and uncles on her mother's side all lived in Hershey," Pa., he said, "and so she spent many of her summers in Hershey."

Mrs. Bocco graduated from the former South Philadelphia High School for Girls and from the Peirce Business School in Center City, before becoming a secretary for what was then the Quartermaster Depot.

Betty Forbes, a retired faculty member at the School of Nursing at Thomas Jefferson University, had known her as a friend since the 1950s. Forbes was a nursing classmate at Methodist Hospital in Philadelphia with Mrs. Bocco's sister, Louise.

When the sisters' mother, Angelina, died young, she said, "Phyllis kind of took care of Louise."

And among other kindnesses, Forbes said, "she took [Louise] to Broadway shows in Philadelphia" at a time when the city's major theaters offered final tryouts before Manhattan.

The sisters' father, Michael, lived with Louise, Forbes said, but he made sure to spend weekends at the Bocco home "for her Italian dinners."

The Boccos moved their business to its Cherry Hill location in 1978, where, among other responsibilities, her son said, "she was a greeter."

Mrs. Bocco was a longtime member of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Society at what is now Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Fatima Church in Camden.

Besides her son, she is survived by son James, daughter Judy Ann Lukaszewicz, a sister, five grandchildren, and a great-grandson. Her husband died in 1986.

Visitations were set from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 26, and 8:30 to 9:45 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 27, both at the Bocco Funeral Home, 1300 Kings Highway N., Cherry Hill, before a 10:30 a.m. Funeral Mass at Christ Our Light Church, 402 Kings Highway N., Cherry Hill, N.J. 08034, with entombment in New St. Mary's Mausoleum, Bellmawr.

Donations may be sent to the church at the above address.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.boccofuneralhome.com.

wnaedele@phillynews.com

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