Alfreda Passaglia

Kansas farm girl married Navy officer; and the Queen lived happily ever after. Alfreda Frances (Dold) Passaglia died peacefully on September 26, 2022 at age 91.

She was most proud of her Kansas roots and being a military spouse, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Born in Colwich, Kansas, her family lost their farm during the Great Depression. She always said her fortunes changed in the eighth grade when her mother surprised her one day by driving her to take an exam for admission to Sacred Heart Academy, a Catholic all girls’ boarding school, in Wichita, KS. She was awarded a full four-year academic scholarship. Later, the nuns encouraged her to apply for the nursing program at St. Louis University from which she graduated in 1955. For years, she hung her college diploma over the washing machine, she joked, to remind herself every day that she chose to be a wife and to raise her children. In college, she met the love of her life, an extroverted graduate student from Chicago, who was awaiting orders to Navy Officer Candidate School. They dated for six weeks, usually splitting a burger and two beers for “a buck” at Lou’s Bar in St. Louis, became engaged, and were married on November 24, 1955 while he was on a four-day liberty pass. She loved career military life and the close friends it brought her. They were stationed in Port Lyautey, Kingdom of Morocco, Washington, D.C., Jacksonville, FL, Pensacola, FL, San Diego, CA, Corpus Christi, TX, and Warminster, PA, before retiring to Colorado in the 1970s. She humbly bragged that they’d moved twelve times and left every home more beautiful than before they’d arrived. She was a warrior, beating breast cancer and a mastectomy in her 40s. She was a dauntless explorer, having visited more than 20 countries and nearly every antique mall west of the Mississippi. She was a good mom. To help pay for her kids’ college education and, importantly, orthodontia, she worked at JC Penney’s in Cinderella City Mall for more than ten years.

She is survived by her husband of 66 years, Captain Martin Passaglia Jr. (USN, retired), their four children, Eric Passaglia (Abigail Friedman), Lisa Passaglia (Reid) Bauman, Charles Passaglia (Sarah VanScoy), and Christine (Dennis) Schlaht, twelve grandchildren, Rachel VanScoy (Taylor Trask), Abraham Passaglia (Maryam MZadeh), Martha Passaglia, Hannah Bauman, Peter Schlaht (Corinne Falotico), Samuel Passaglia, Katherine Bauman, Renate Schlaht (Alexander McLeod), Sarah Bauman, Karl Schlaht, Marguerite Passaglia, and Lucia Passaglia, and a great-granddaughter, Moira Trask.

A funeral Mass will be held at Light of the World Catholic Church, 10306 W. Bowles Ave., Littleton, CO 80127, at 11:00 a.m. on October 20, 2022.

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