Margarita Cuddy Bick Fitzgerald was born in Manhattan on July 2nd, 1899. Her sister, Mary, was born 2 (or 3 ) (I have to find my paper work) years later. Mary was my grandmother.
My grandmother died before I was born, so my Aunt Rita was more of a grandma to me, than an Aunt.
Here she is near the end of her life with her second husband, Uncle Billy. He was a wonderful kind man and all the children loved him.
Looking at this picture it's hard to believe what a wild woman she was. In this picture you can also see Geraldine. That is their youngest child.
By all accounts, Rita was a beautiful woman. My grandfather actually chased after her, but was turned down, he then married her sister. My father had a crush on her.
She married Charles Bick. He was German, he was a butcher and he was very athletic and liked to show off his skills and body. When I find the pictures of them two at the beach I will put them here. They had money, he had a butchers schedule, he had to be in bed early to get up for work around 1am. They had a son, Charles Bick.
They were at the beach one day when show off Charles dived off a pier. Now days they always warn, DON'T jump/dive off anything without inspecting the water below first! He dived and hit something that killed him.
What a shock that must of been for Rita. She is now a young widow with a young boy.
Here is a picture of them, probably soon after the death of her husband.
They had 4 children. Billy, Rita Ann, Bobby, Geraldine. When Rita Ann was 6 years old she died of appendix. The doctor was treating her for a cold. My mother told me because of the poison in her body making her bloat she looked like a 9 year old in the coffin.
I was named after her, my name was supposed to be Rita Ann. But when my mother gave the nurse the information when I was born, the nurse put the Ann down as my middle name. I used to be called Rita Ann by family, which I never liked.
I loved going to visit Aunt Rita because she would make me strawberry malteds! She lived in Brooklyn and she would take the buses and trains to visit us in Queens. I would be told to wait up the corner for her and I can still see her coming and me running towards her. She did pinch my cheeks pretty hard. I did not like that so much. lol My father would drive her home.
When Ag was little we would visit Aunt Rita in Staten Island. She loved Agnes and the feeling was mutual. Agnes had a stuffed baby superman doll that she called Aunt Rita and she had to keep it near her at bedtime.
Aunt Rita told me her mother was afraid of storms and during a storm she would light holy candles to keep safe. Rita did not like storms either.
On July 17th, 1982, Rita told Bill she was going in to nap. She would put a hankerchief over her face when she napped. She never woke up.
My aunt Mae told me they went to visit them one night and looked in the window and saw them watching TV, holding hands. They had a great marriage. Uncle Bill did not live long after the love of his life died.
* Because her first born, Charles was with my grandmother so much, he was closes to her, not his mother and he always resented the fact that she did not put some money aside that his father left for them, for him, instead of partying it all away.
*Rita was talking about some woman when her sister picked up a plate of butter and smashed it in her face saying, "you have no right to talk about other people!" Bringing up the fact that Rita "lived in sin" with Bill for 9 months. lol
*We were at a wedding, it could have been the wedding of the picture above and there was a piano (we would walk her back and forth to the bathroom) and I asked her play.
She did play a little tune and showed me her fingers, how her nails turn up a bit and she said that is because she played the piano.
UPDATE: More pictures!
Here they are, handsome couple.
I am guessing it is their car. I don't know who the woman on the left is, but she is in a lot of pictures and I wonder if she is a relative of Charles Bick.
These pictures are almost a hundred years old. So the quality of this picture is pretty bad, but you can see Charles posing for the picture. And there is Aunt Rita in her black bathing suit posing for the picture too.
I wonder if this was the day....he died. We will never know.
This is their son, Charlie, all grown up. He had AAA, abdominal aortic aneurysm, that they did not know about and died having minor surgery when it erupted. Aunt Rita had it too, but she did not die from it. (Aunt Mae had it too)
He was a wonderful man, lots of fun, I miss him.
