elevated Ri0lw February 5, 1949 ~ July 21, 2024

elevated Ri0lw Visitation
Thursday, July 25, 2024 at 4 – 8 pm & Friday, July 26, 2024 at 4 – 8 pm
Holy Cross Catholic Funeral Home
211 Langstaff Road East, Thornhill, Ontario, L3T 3Z6

elevated Ri0lw Funeral Mass
Saturday, July 27, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Chapel of St. Joseph at Holy Cross Catholic Funeral Home
211 Langstaff Road East, Thornhill, Ontario, L3T 3Z6

elevated Ri0lw View The Service

Entombment
To be held privately

Celebrating the Life of Vito Scrozzo
February 5, 1949 – July 21, 2024

elevated Ri0lw They say those who plant a garden have hope for the future. Vito Scrozzo had hope in spades. 

Born in the small Sicilian mountain town of Borgetto to Antonino and Giuseppa Scrozzo (née Mazzurco), Vito planted his first garden at the age of 11, which came in the form of a young milking cow. Having completed fifth grade, he was pulled from school to support his family. Young Vito spent 11 days in Balestrate, from morning until night, cutting grapes from vines. Those 11 days earned him 11,000 Lira (about eight dollars), enough to purchase that cow. He was so happy. That cow gave Vito and his family milk and cheese that could be sold to buy more animals or traded for potatoes to fill their bellies. He bought more cows (and chickens and donkeys and mules!), until he had 12 cows and sold them all. At 22, Vito had enough money to plant his next garden: a plane ticket to Canada.

 Handsome Vito crossed an ocean to find his beautiful wife, who, as these things sometimes go in tight Italian immigrant communities, was from his very same small town of Borgetto. He courted Elizabeth Chiaramonte as any traditional Italian of the 70s would, on supervised dates with Elizabeth’s sister, at community events or in the Chiaramonte house, always chaperoned. They married on April 26, 1975. “I just felt so lucky when I married him,” Elizabeth would recall. They celebrated 49 years this Spring.

Vito’s next garden came through his hands as he learned to drywall and tape. His work ethic would pay the rent in the couple’s first home, an apartment in Toronto, and then a house in North York. It would feed not only their mouths, but the mouths of Vito’s parents, and then the three Scrozzo children: first Anthony, then Joe, then Victoria. In 1986, Vito bought a house in Woodbridge: $185,000, all cash. Because he had worked hard, and he could.

 That garden — those hands — worked Monday through Saturday to buy cars and vacations for his wife and his kids (and eventually grandkids), college and university tuitions, too. The Scrozzo children never wanted for anything. As a young adult trying to find her own path in life, Victoria once asked her Papà, “How did you know what you wanted to do?” For this drywaller, it was simple: “You find something you can do and if it feeds your family — that’s what you do.” And he did.

 Vito’s hands also built houses for his children and a new kitchen for Elizabeth (their home was in a perpetual state of renovation, a curse for obvious reasons, but also a blessing because what Elizabeth dreamed up, Vito would produce). Victoria could have bought a foot stool from Dollarama to place under her desk, but no. Vito built it and varnished it, the corners rounded just so. His hands poured concrete for a neighbour, laid bricks for his cousins, made a Halloween costume for Victoria’s childhood best friend, built a skating rink for his granddaughters and so many other things—each to perfection, every time. Vito rarely slowed down, except to sip his coffee while watching C’è Posta Per Te (a reality TV show that reunited long-lost friends and family, and brought Vito to tears) and while sitting with his grandpup, Juno, in the backyard, wrapping the Miniature Schnauzer in a small blanket, placing him in his lap and stroking his back.

And then, of course, there was Vito’s actual garden. Winters were spent planning and plotting his backyard paradise, waiting for gardening weather and checking the soil for his three fig trees hibernating in the garage. When the weather was warm enough to melt the daytime frost, Vito would wheel those fig trees onto the driveway to bathe them in sun, then wheel them back in before nightfall’s cold. March was his time for seedlings, cared for in a tiny greenhouse. Once his tomato seeds sprouted, he’d divvy them up among family, friends and neighbours, gifting some, trading others — more seeds, more clippings, more saplings. And once those tomatoes were ready, he’d pluck them from the vine and eat them like apples. There wasn’t a plant, flower, tree or vine that Vito didn’t love. Pulling his grandpup out of his crate each morning, Vito would say, “Juno, as long as the sun’s out, we don’t go inside.” And they didn’t.

 Vito’s family was his most treasured garden of all. He was so proud of his children and his grandchildren. He was the doting Nonno to Marie, Claire, Catherine, and Allison, driving them to school each morning (or, when young Allison insisted, walking her to the bus stop and letting her go from there). He planted this garden, cared for this garden, lived for this garden with his hands and his heart — his big, warm heart that brought such comfort, such joy, such wisdom, that touched the lives of so many.

 Vito Scrozzo stopped gardening on July 21, 2024. And although he was only 75 years old, he had planted so much, with so much hope for what his gardens would bring, that the fruits of his labours are sure to flourish for generations. Vito’s legacy lives in the people he loved, the relationships he sowed, the items he built, each person and thing cared for as he would any garden — with love, with pride, and with hope for the future. 

 Vito is survived by his beloved wife, Elizabeth; proud children, Anthony (Tonia), Joe, and Victoria; adoring grandchildren Marie, Claire, Catherine, Allison, and yes, Juno; sister Brigida (Rosario); nephew Dominick (Elodia); and nieces Rosemarie and Josephine (Peter).

With hurting hearts, but also Vito’s hope for the future, his family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Princess Margaret Hospital-Cancer Foundation.