Ramonita Albertorio Negrón (March 4, 1937 - January 19, 2024)
It is with a heavy heart that we share news of Ramonita Albertorio Negrón’s death. She died on Friday, January 19, 2024, after a relatively brief hospitalization.
Ramonita Albertorio was born March 4, 1937 in Juana Díaz, Puerto Rico. Early in life she came to New York and was a founding member of Zion Lutheran Church, a community of faithful people predominantly from Puerto Rico. She served as President and was one of the leaders who transformed Zion (the former St. John’s German Lutheran Church) into an effective Latino ministry in El Barrio, Spanish Harlem. It is this community which, in the early 2000s, began to be served by Pastor Fabian Arias – a time when many people from Argentina enriched the life of that congregation.
Ramonita was among the courageous visionaries who helped conceive of a redevelopment of the Zion church building with Pastor Arias. When the project was halted by the financial crisis of 2008 and resulted in the sale of the property, she was one of the key leaders that led the now Iglesia de Sion into partnership – and eventual merger – with Saint Peter’s.
Just about everyone at Saint Peter’s knows of Ramonita’s deep faith. Her passion. Her enthusiasm. Her unwavering dedication to the success of our present and future ministry. She was most often found among a trio who gathered at the altar every week to ring the “Sanctus bells”: her much-beloved and late friend, Marta Serur, as well as fellow founding member of Zion, Rafalena Betancourt. Rafaelina remembers Ramonita enjoying a successful career as a secretary, and enjoying her vibrant life with family and friends even more. At Saint Peter’s, Ramonita could always be counted on to bring the Coquito – a traditional Puerto Rican drink of coconut milk, condensed milk, cream of coconut, cinnamon, nutmeg and, of course, at least one type of rum – to celebrations: from birthdays to anniversaries. Family and church: these, for Ramonita, were one and the same.
The story of Ramonita and her husband, Tony, is a love story for the ages. What brought them together? Dancing. They were both lovers of salsa. Antonio Negrón met Ramonita Albertorio dancing salsa at the Caborrojeño club in the Bronx. This past year they celebrated sixty years of married life. Earlier this month, Tony and Ramonita both became hospitalized at the same time, being cared for on two different floors of Lenox Hill Hospital. Tony remains there. With him, and Ramonita and Tony’s five children – Perry, Gary, Larry, Peter, and Antonio, Jr., and their families – we are all in grief, pain and shock at her death. She is the last of her own siblings.
