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Iconic mother and grandmother, upholsterer
Alba (Rinaldi) Rasmussen was a little bit of everything, and a lot of what her adoring family needed her to be.
“We needed Alba to be an Italian mother who took our side automatically in a fight,” wrote Dinny Rasmussen in a tribute to her mother-in-law. “We needed her to be faithful and go to church everyday. We needed her to be old-fashioned, slow to change, to be our rock. And she was these things but she was so much more.”
And so much more included being a woman who studied the night sky; a woman who enjoyed horse races and travel; a woman who read the paper and expressed her opinions; a woman who, although she would make you gnocchi soup if you were ill and tortellini with “memorable marinara sauce” if you were healthy, didn’t like to cook all that much.
Ms. Rasmussen, a 48-year resident of Claremont, died at home on February 2, 2008 following a brief illness. She was 84.
Shortly after her mother and sister emigrated from northern Italy, Ms. Rasmussen was born in Dover, New Hampshire on September 20, 1923. Several years after the family reunited in the US—her father had come ahead of the rest of the family—they moved to Des Moines, Iowa where a large community of Italians lived. Ms. Rasmussen was 3-years-old at this time.
In the summer of 1948, while attending a dance, Ms. Rasmussen met a young Iowa State University student, Bill Rasmussen. In December of the same year, they married. Ms. Rasmussen, a mathematician, teacher and former member of the US Navy, was invited by the navy to work in California. Following this employment, the Rasmussens moved first to Pomona and then to Claremont, where they lived for nearly half-of-a-century. Eventually, Mr. Rasmussen worked for General Dynamics and Hughes Aircraft in this area.
While in Claremont, Ms. Rasmussen volunteered for Meals on Wheels, attended daily services at Our Lady of the Assumption Church and became very involved in upholstery classes at the Claremont Adult School, which she enjoyed immensely. Though she did not attend college, her family shared that she often felt as though she had, so closely linked to and supportive of her husband was she during his completion of undergraduate and graduate studies.
In many respects, Ms. Rasmussen was not a typical modern woman (in fact, she closely resembled a 50s housewife in appearance, noted her daughter-in-law) but she was “firmly planted on the ground in the midst of the swirl and sway of our seemingly sophisticated, complicated, often frightening lives,” stated the tribute written by her daughter-in-law.
“She was very much an iconic figure,” said her daughter-in-law. “She was Catholic and Italian. She was loud, she was short, she cooked. I sort of felt like I was in a movie.”
Adored by her grandchildren, they affectionately called her “Noonie,” a derivative of the Italian word for grandmother, “Nona.” Even her grandchildren’s friends adopted this special term of endearment for her, and her single great-grandchild, not yet adept in speech, had his own special version, “Nooie.”
“I could introduce you to her and you would be calling her ‘Noonie’ very quickly,” said her daughter-in-law.
Ms. Rasmussen is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Bill and Dinny Rasmussen of Claremont; by her daughter and son-in-law, Linda and Andy Rathfon of Winchester; by her grandchildren, Cameron Smith, Maurgan Ridd and Tony, Danny and David Rasmussen; and by her great-grandson, Andrew Dominic Smith. She was preceded in death by her husband of over 50 years, Bill Rasmussen, Sr., in 2003.
A Funeral Mass was held on February 8, 2008 at Our Lady of the Assumption Church, Claremont. Interment followed at Oak Park Cemetery.
