Barbara D'Agrosa

Sheldon, IA   Barbara Ann D’Agrosa died at age 90 on Saturday, November 12, 2016 in Des Moines, Iowa.   The Funeral Mass will be 10:30 am on Saturday, December 10 at St. Patrick's Church in Sheldon, IA with Fr. Siby Punnoose officiating. The burial of her ashes will be at a later date at the Mount St. Mary Cemetery in Flushing, N.Y.   The visitation will be Friday, December 9 from 4:00–7:00 pm, with the family present, at St. Patrick's Church in Sheldon.   Barbara was born on August 7,1926 in Corona, NY where she lived in a house with her parents and grandparents, five of her aunts, and three uncles. Her mother died when she was eleven and she and her father and brother remained living with her extended family that loved them.   In 1940, she graduated from P.S.14 in Queens, NY and continued on to Newtown High School, where she graduated in 1944. She married Peter D’Agrosa in 1946 after Peter returned from World War II. Although the marriage ended after many years, they lovingly raised four children.   From a young age, Barbara and her grandmother would experiment in the kitchen. Though her grandmother didn’t speak English, nor did Barbara speak Italian, they found a common language in cooking.   Barbara’s love of cooking was directly linked to her desire to connect with people. “You have to introduce good food to people,” she said,  “you get to know people when you eat together.” She moved to Northwest Iowa, largely a German and Dutch population, in 1982. A gregarious Italian woman with a thick Queens accent, she was unambiguously distinct. It was not long before Bobbi—as she was often called—became a force in the community. Whether they met her at the Country Florist, where she worked for several years, or St. Patricks, where she was an active member of the church, or at the community college in Sheldon, where she taught cooking classes, people were bowled over by her charm and exuberance—and her cooking. Along with her strong sense of community, she valued her family, her friends, her heritage, and the traditions she brought with her from the East Coast, and, of course, her recipes. “Most people don’t like to share their recipes, but that’s just selfish.” she once told her granddaughter Nina. “I like the idea of someone thinking of me while they’re cooking.”   Barbara will be greatly missed and is survived by her four children, Gary (Esther) D’Agrosa, Janet (Aaron) Stegeman, Diane (John) Nesselt, and Daniel (Marie) D’Agrosa; ten grandchildren; and six great grandchildren, and her siblings, Annette Nicolosi, and Michael Clinco. She was preceded in death by her parents, Vito and Antoinette Clinco, her brother, Stephen, and Peter D’Agrosa.   Memorials can be directed to St. Jude Children’s Hospital.