A ‘MARBLE-OUS’ GIFT!

Albany Diocesan Cemeteries receives three Italian marble statues, including St. Nicholas

The Holy Family statue, donated to Albany Diocesan Cemeteries by Andrew Marrone, was placed in the Holy Family Garden at Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery in Niskayuna, and St. Anne (inset) was placed in St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Waterford. (Emily Benson photos)

You’d better watch out, St. Nicholas is making an early visit to the Diocese this year. 

Standing on the hilltop inside St. Agnes Cemetery in Menands, a new statue of the jolly saint overlooks the eastern side of the grounds in the cemetery’s latest section, which is now named in his honor, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.  

And the story of his coming to St. Agnes is quite the Christmas gift. 

St. Nicholas was one of three life-sized statues recently donated to Albany Diocesan Cemeteries. Each statue — one of St. Anne, St. Nicholas and one depicting the Holy Family — is dated from the 1940s, was carved in Italy from Italian marble, and shipped to the U.S.  

St. Nicolas overlooks the east side of St. Agnes Cemetery in Menands.

The statues belonged to the late Nicholas and Gemma Marrone and were donated by their son, Andrew, who had the statues preserved in storage after his parents’ passing.

Marrone first called the Albany Diocesan Cemeteries office late last year to ask whether they would take the statues in.

“I didn’t see the sense in keeping them in storage,” he said. “I wanted people to be able to appreciate them like we did for years.”

Kelly Grimaldi, Director of Education and Program Development for Albany Diocesan Cemeteries, said she was “shocked” when she got the call.

“This man called me up out of the blue early last year and said my parents bought statues from Italy in the 1940s — they’re really beautiful, they’re in pristine condition, I’ve had them in storage — and I’m thinking your little two-foot statues, and I’m thinking we don't really have a need for that.”

Then, he mentioned they were life-size: “And that caught my attention,” she said.

Growing up, the three life-sized statues sat inside a trench dug by Marrone’s father and grandfather in the front of his childhood home in Coxsackie. The house also sat behind a local ice cream stand, and from the parking lot, the statues often caught patrons’ eyes.

“People would see the statues from the parking lot and they would walk right through the gate and onto our lawn,” Marrone said. “My father had a kneeling rail there and lights at night to see it, and people would come in and pray on the kneeling rail and sit there and look at them and then go back to their cars.”

For all the joy the statues brought, their inception came during a difficult time: Marrone’s mother had suffered a miscarriage early in her marriage and was left with little chance of bearing children. Both practicing Catholics, his parents purchased the statues as a means of hope for them to adopt children in the future, which they did, adopting Marrone and his sister, Christine. 

The statues have since been a joy to marvel at, with Marrone and his wife, Victoria, getting married in front of the statues in 1989.

“I think my parents appreciated people coming over and looking at them,” Marrone said. “(People) were kind of surprised to see them there, and they never stopped anybody from coming, and I think they enjoyed other people enjoying them.”

“To see it in person, just the detail, it's phenomenal,” Grimaldi added.

The Holy Family statue was placed in the Holy Family Garden at Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery in Niskayuna, and St. Anne was placed in St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Waterford.

Marrone and his wife are planning to take a trip up to Albany in the spring to see the statues in their new homes.

“We’ll do a tour, have lunch,” he said. “A nice spring day and off we go.”