DAUGHTER, MOTHER, FRIEND

“Everyone was shocked and amazed at what we had done with the house,”
said Josephine. “People would say, “There’s no one like Josephine.” She
says: “I think I had a lot of responsibility at a very young age, and that
made me who I am.”
After five years of trying to have babies, Claudia arrived in 1971; Camille in
1974; Eddie in 1979.
But her marriage to Eddie wouldn’t last, and in 1982, the Marquezes
divorced.
She moved her three children and herself into the same one-bedroom
apartment that a decade earlier she had helped her husband renovate and
started off her marriage in. And since she owned the apartment, she was
able to live there for two years until her home in Elmont, N.Y., was built.
She always knew a good thing when she saw it. And when her friend offered
to build a home for her at a reasonable price, she jumped at the opportunity.
She sold the apartment to her youngest brother and with the proceeds was
able to afford a down payment on a beautiful new home on Randall Avenue,
Elmont, in a good neighborhood.
The house she bought was built by Sal Vivona, who later would become her
companion.
With a job at the Bingo hall, Josephine settled in to raising her family as a
single mom. “I always worked, but I worked out of necessity,” she recalls.
Daughter Camille says: “Where do I start? My mom has always been a safe
haven for me. She tucked me into bed every night and gave me 1,000 kisses
before I would go to sleep. And for that, I am eternally grateful.”
She continues: “But I also love her for her commitment to herself and
her children. Staying in a marriage to my father would have been the
easier thing to do, but she left, and in leaving her marriage, she lost her
19 A LIFE OF HER OWN