Sandra Gail Gatti

Sandra Gail Gatti , Sterling Heights, Michigan

Born: March 21, 1942 in Detroit

Died: February 17, 2021 at Beaumont Hospital, Dearborn

Cause of death: Covid

Surviving family: Son Michael Gatti (Lisa Murray); daughter Angela Maynor (Ronald); sister Dianne Klamik (Steven); brother Bernard Norton (Cordelia); granddaughters Rebeca and Emily Maynor and Roberta Gatti. Her husband, Robert Gatti, preceded her in death.

Service: None, per her wishes. A gathering of family and friends will happen at a later date, once it is safe; there will be way too much food.

We are of course beyond heartbroken at the loss of Sandra (Sandy) Gatti. But we also want to honor her last wishes. She was adamant that she didn’t want people to mourn, and she didn’t want a funeral. Instead, she wanted all of her loved ones to come together, have a nice meal (preferably Italian), and tell funny stories about her. So while we all wait until we can gather together again safely, we can start to celebrate her life now and commence with the funny stories... because, believe us, there’s a lot of ground to cover.

Sandy was born in Detroit to Frank and Luella Norton, in a house a short walk from the old Better Made potato chip factory, where she and her sister Dianne would go to buy bags of ‘seconds.’ She inherited her mother’s good-natured sense of humor and her father’s kind heart. At age ten, her family moved to Southfield, where she later met Bob Gatti, the love of her life and the man she would marry. They lived in various Detroit suburbs while raising their son Mike and daughter Angie, with Sandy finally returning to live in Sterling Heights after Bob’s death in 1997. She had a long and varied work career; a running family joke was the number of different jobs she held over the years, everything from being a carhop at the Dipsy Doodle to customer service at Art Van. She covered a lot of bases.

The stories, though. When Sandy met Bob, little did she realize that she, from a small family, would be marrying into an enormous, bighearted, sometimes dysfunctional, hilarious Italian American brood. Her jobs paid the bills, but her heart belonged to her family. Who knows how many pounds of food she cooked over the years for family gatherings: macaroni, sauce, her beloved coffee cake, chicken and dumplings, stuffed cabbage… and the 20+ pounds of potato salad she made once for a family wedding that Mike dropped in the yard while carrying it to the car (good one, Mike). How many evenings started quietly and ended up with a kitchen full of people laughing and a Buscemi’s pizza on the counter? She loved her family and adored her granddaughters, and she managed to spread her love and generosity across all of her in-laws, her many (many) nephews and nieces, and pretty much anyone else she met. If you ever needed a hot meal or a place to stay for a while, you went to Sandy’s.

She meant business too, though. When you saw her hand on her hip, you knew what was coming. On one occasion when she was a toddler, granddaughter Roberta was misbehaving and, seeing the hand start to creep up Sandy’s side, she said, “Grandma, don’t put your hand there.” (She didn’t, of course.) You also knew whenever she was unhappy about something because she’d let out a sigh that conveyed so many layers of disappointment. Sometimes, Mike or Angie would get a phone message from her where all you heard on the answering machine was one long, drawn-out sigh.

She LOVED to shop. She should have bought stock in QVC and Costco so she could recoup some small portion of the money she spent at both places. And she loved movies, old and new. You never wanted to be on the opposing team from her in a trivia game if movies were in the mix.

More than anything, though, we will cherish the times when we laughed with her because boy, did she love to laugh. Her zingers, too: even from a young age, she had the instincts and timing of a seasoned borscht belt comedian. And you could always get her to laugh just by reciting swear words to her. Don’t ask us why.

You couldn’t ask for a more devoted and loyal mother, grandmother, sibling, aunt, or friend. Ma, we love you to the moon and back, and we’ll miss you every day for the rest of our lives. We hope there’s a DiMambro’s Restaurant in heaven and that there’s a seat next to Bob waiting for you.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that anyone who wishes to make a memorial gift make it to one of Sandy’s favorite charities: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital or Ronald McDonald House Charities.