1940-2023: Jerri Camuglia graced family's Italian deli with energy, humor and outgoing personality

Oct. 26—Maria D'Alessandro is from East Orange, New Jersey, about an hour from New York City. She grew up expecting to see an Italian grocer or food store on about every corner.

She found out that was not the case when she moved to Albuquerque in 1976. But then friends introduced her to John and Geraldine "Jerri" Camuglia and their store, Tully's Italian Deli & Meats on San Mateo.

Tully's seemed to have it all, from pasta and sausages to cheeses and olive oil.

"It was nice to be able to get what I needed here," D'Alessandro said on Thursday. "I just came from there. We got some pasta, some olives and cheese. I love they have frozen dishes there you can just take home and put in the microwave.

"I got tiramisu at the bakery a couple of days ago."

She also became friends with the Camuglias, John, who died in 2006, and Jerri, who died earlier this month.

"Jerri was a great lady, fun to be around," D'Alessandro said. "She was a sweet lady with a big heart, always there to help people when she could.

"She cared about who you were and what you were up to. She'd say, 'OK, what's your story today?'"

A celebration of life for Jerri Camuglia will be at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Sandia Baptist Church, 9429 Constitution NE. Lunch will follow.

Survivors include a daughter, Joy Ashley and husband Shawn of Perry, Georgia; a son, Johnny Camuglia and wife Gail of Albuquerque; and seven grandchildren.

Not exactly Italian

Jerri Camuglia could turn out a tasty pasta fagioli, a traditional Italian pasta and bean soup, and certainly knew her way around Tully's shelves, laden with Italian foodstuffs. So, it probably surprised a lot of people to find out she herself was not Italian.

She was born Geraldine Funderburke in Albuquerque on Jan. 16, 1940. She graduated from Valley High School in 1957.

She met John Camuglia, a native of Staten Island, New York, in 1962 when John was visiting his brother Joseph, who operated a pizza parlor in Albuquerque. Joseph Camuglia would later open Paisano's Italian Restaurant on Eubank.

Johnny Camuglia, John and Jerri's son, who now owns and operates Tully's, said his uncle's pizza place backed up to his mother's residence, and that's how his mom and dad came to meet. They were married in Albuquerque on Aug. 31, 1962, three months after they first saw each other.

"My mom was English and German," Johnny said. "She used to say she was only Italian by injection. She would say that to everybody."

Cooking in Poughkeepsie

After John and Jerri married, they moved to Poughkeepsie, New York, where Joy and Johnny were born.

John had a smokehouse and a butcher market in Poughkeepsie.

Johnny said his mother did not know much about about cooking when she got married, but her husband and mother-in-law taught her.

Accustomed as she was to the wide-open spaces of New Mexico, Johnny said his mother felt somewhat claustrophobic in the "trees and jungles" of Dutchess County, New York.

"But she fell in love with New York," he said. "It was her second home."

She fell in love with Italian food, too, and Johnny said pasta caused his mother to put on the pounds.

"In 1961, on a dare, my mom competed in the Miss New Mexico contest in Albuquerque," he said. "She finished fourth out of 16 girls. Later, after she put on weight, she'd say 'There's a Miss America under there somewhere.'"

John and Jerri lived in Poughkeepsie for six years, but moved back to Albuquerque in 1968 and opened Johnny's Food Center on Edith.

Knew no strangers

Tully's Meat Market had been located at 5005 Lomas NE since the early 1960s. John and Jerri bought it from a previous owner in 1970 and several years later moved the store from Lomas to its present location at 1425 San Mateo NE.

They decided to retain the Tully's name since it was familiar to Albuquerque residents, but they changed other things.

"It had been a butcher market," Johnny said. "My parents brought in pasta, cheese, tomatoes and started canning the sauce."

He said he himself started working in the store when he was 8 and had to stand on an apple crate to serve customers over the store's counter.

Johnny describes his mother as caring and jovial.

"She did not know a stranger," he said.

Perhaps remembering when she was a newlywed without cooking skills, she took time to help others.

"She taught a lot of people to cook, young wives who did not know how," Johnny said. "She would tell them how to cook a pot roast and walk them through the store to show them what ingredients to get. She was generous. She'd cook for people who were sick."

Crossword Wednesdays

Regina Padilla, Tully's marketing manager, started working at Tully's more than 25 years ago, when she was 19.

She attended the University of New Mexico and wanted to become a chemical engineer.

"I had big plans," she said. "I was going to see the world. But I always found a reason to stay (at Tully's). I became part of the family."

She remembers Jerri's big personality.

"When she was in the room, you knew it," Padilla said. "She was full of energy and stories."

Padilla has fond memories of a quieter time shared with Jerri.

"When I first started working here, we'd fill out the (newspaper) crosswords together," she said. "Wednesdays were crossword days. We did that for a number of years. I miss that."

Jerri mostly retired from Tully's in 2014.

"After we moved to computers, she said, 'I'm out of here,'" Johnny said. "She came from when we were adding things up on paper bags."

She started volunteering at Albuquerque's Presbyterian Kasemen Hospital and took to that enthusiastically until COVID robbed her of that opportunity.

Turkey calls

Even in retirement, Jerri kept her hand in at the store, kept in touch with customers. She continued to be the one who would start calling customers this time of year to find out if they needed a Thanksgiving turkey and what size.

"She'd call and say, 'Do you need your turkey bird this year?'" Johnny said. "And then she would catch up with the (customer's) family."

This year, it is Padilla who is calling customers about the turkeys. She said most have heard about Jerri's death, but she has had to inform others. In either case the calls turn to sharing memories about Jerri.

Today, Tully's is an Italian deli, eatery and specialty market. Johnny says the store has everything for the Italian pantry. He added Saratori's Italian Pastry Shop, named for his daughters Sarah and Victoria (Tori), to the operation.

"We do a lot of wedding cakes," he said. "Italian wedding cakes, all kinds of wedding cakes."

But he and Padilla know that Tully's is not just about the food. It's about the relationships between the Camuglias and their customers and employees.

"We aren't just treated as employees," Padilla said. "We are treated as family. We just felt loved."