Gloria Hejduk A'49 was a woman of culture. She was 94 years old.

"Gracious, curious, and thoughtful, Gloria Fiorentino Hejduk was a true intellectual and marvelous interlocutor who valued her family and friends with fierce loyalty and devotion.

She was known as much for her great beauty and mind as for her quick wit, conversations, attention to the details of a story, and uncanny ability to see through a situation to its essential truth.

She passed away within days of her 95th birthday at Calvary Hospital Hospice in Morris Park, where she was cared for with grace and dignity. She also lived in Riverdale prior to her death.

She was the beloved wife of the John Hejduk, an architect and educator who died in July 2000.

Additionally, she was mother of Rafael Hejduk, who died in August 2000.

Her beloved sisters Margaret and Emma died before as well.

She is survived by her daughter Renata Hejduk, her son-in-law Darren Petrucci, and her grandson Gianni Hejduk-Petrucci, as well as many family members across the United States.

Born in Paterson, New Jersey, to working-class Italian immigrants, she attended Paterson High School, where Louis Ginsberg — the poet Alan Ginsberg’s father — taught her literature. She fondly remembered Ginsberg coming into his father’s class as a little boy. Her childhood family physician was the poet William Carlos Williams.

In 1949, she received her bachelor’s of fine arts degree from The Cooper Union for The Advancement of Science of Art, where she met John Hejduk, the love of her life, while he was studying architecture. She worked at Oxford University Press in New York during college as a book designer."

To read her full obituary in The Riverdale Press, please click here.