Andrea Mancini
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Andrea Mancini, 28, of
Johnston, was always looking out for her family.
The 9th of 11 children, Andrea
was the family worrywart, and it was she who brought them together, said her
family members.
"Every time she left the room,
everybody got a kiss," said her oldest brother, Peter A. Jacavone Jr., 41.
She would drive her 13 nieces
and nephews to school, to the mall, to get their nails done. She took her
godson, Anthony Jacavone, now 4, to get his first pair of shoes.
"If you needed a gofer, she'd
do it," said Robert Jacavone, 20, her youngest brother.
Peter Jacavone said that his
sister would do anything for her parents, too. When her father had open-heart
surgery last fall, Andrea cried in the hospital, said her mother, Jackie
Jacavone. "She had the doctor crying, too," she said.
At the Jacavone Garden Center,
the greenhouse on the property on Route 5 in Johnston that the Jacavones have
owned for decades, Andrea -- Mrs. Mancini -- worked the register and ran the
show.
"She knew everybody, everybody
knew her," Robert Jacavone said. "She always had the scoop."
Johnston Police Chief Richard
S. Tamburini said he often stopped by the gardening center, and Mrs. Mancini
was always there, always working, always positive.
"She never had anything bad to
say about anyone or anything," Tamburini said. "I admired her so much."
Behind it all was her love for
her family. Her niece Julia Jacavone, 11 -- a little Andrea, her family says
-- said that her aunt taught her to run the cash register.
"She told me that if she had
kids, or anything were to happen, I would be the one in charge of the
register," Julia said.
On Thursday night, Mrs. Mancini
was checking IDs at the door of The Station, where her husband of 15 months,
Steven Mancini, 39, played in an opening band. Peter Jacavone said that
his sister was probably right by the door when the fire broke out, but she may
have gone back inside to get her husband.
"She wouldn't leave without
Steve," Jacavone said.
-- Journal staff writer
Katherine Boas
source Providence Journal
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