Rita Capocelli

Rita Capocelli, 79, died on January 27, 2022, in Centennial, Colorado of complications from dementia. A visitation will be held at Horan & McConaty on February 10, 2022, from 3-5 pm located at 5303 East County Line Road, Centennial, CO, 80122. A funeral mass will be held on February 11, 2022, at 11 am at St. Thomas More Catholic Parish, located at 8035 South Quebec Street, Centennial, Colorado, 80112. Rita will be interred at Pembroke Cemetery, in Pembroke, Massachusetts, with her husband, Vittorio.

Rita was born on October 14, 1942, in Calvanico, Italy to Rocco and Luigina Merola. She was the youngest of five, having three brothers and one sister. She completed elementary school and formal seamstress training in Naples, Italy in her teens. She married Vittorio Capocelli in 1963 at the age of twenty, and they moved to Brooklyn, New York, soon after. She had three children, Mario Carlo, Vittorio Junior, and Adriana Annamaria. The family moved to Denver, Colorado, in 1978. Rita helped Vittorio run several Italian restaurants in the Denver area between 1978 and 2005. She is remembered by all for her storytelling and her smile.

Rita was preceded in death by her father, Rocco, her mother Luigina, her brothers, Michele and Benito, her sister, Maria, and her husband, Vittorio. She is survived by her brother, Enrico (Sylvia), sons, Mario Carlo and Vittorio Junior (Kelley), daughter, Adriana Annamaria (Ronald), and grandchildren, Gabriela, Nicolas, Isabella (Hunter), Alessia, Emily, and Sophia.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Alzheimer’s Association through GoFundMe http://gofund.me/f3df4094