GUILDERLAND — Amelia M. Marlow (née Drezelo) was known for the colorful flower gardens in her front yard, said her son, Stephen Marlow.

“If you went down Brandle Road to her house, number 190, you could tell it was hers because she had the most brilliant display of flowerbeds on the front  yard, in front of her whole house. There were perennial beds and also annuals, to make every year look different. She had a raised bed in the center — about 30 feet long and 10 feet wide — where she put her brightest colors.”

People would stop all the time, said Mr. Marlow, and his mother loved it: “She’d go ahead and tell you about every flower she planted. She was very outgoing.”

Mrs. Marlow died on Monday, April 10, 2017, at the Glendale Nursing Home. She was 87.

Born in Berne on Sept. 21, 1929, Mrs. Marlow was the daughter of the late Joseph and Anna Drezelo, who came over from “the Austro-Hungarian empire,” Mr. Marlow said — the area of Austria and Ukraine, where borders shifted often. Her parents spoke Ukrainian, he said.

She was raised on a dairy farm in West Berne, the middle child of seven. Her family raised crops there, including hay, corn, and grain for the animals, and kept a large — several-acre — vegetable garden for their own use. She often told her son that they were poor growing up, but rich for having each other.

She was unfazed by a childhood accident, her son said, in which she lost about half her hand. Chopping wood with her brother when she was 9 and he was 10, her job was to retrieve the wood, and they “got out of sync,” Mr. Marlow said.

Amelia was a homemaker who, after her husband’s death in 1979, took classes at Maria College and became a teacher’s aid at Guilderland High School.

Kids were always special to her, said her son. “Especially hers,” he added.

She was a good listener, and her children could talk with her about anything. “No problem was too small or too big,” said Mr. Marlow.

She was very fair and did not need to be a strong disciplinarian. “All she had to do was look at you with a look that showed she was disappointed in you, and that was enough,” her son recalled.

“If you had done something wrong and somebody had come looking for you, she’d protect you. But after that, she’d deal with you,” Mr. Marlow said.

She was community-minded and liked to be helpful, her son said. Her husband was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Mrs. Marlow “would work with the auxiliary, doing events, parties, helping set things up, cooking, whatever they needed.”

When Mr. Marlow was a child, the father of one of his friends died, he said. “Right away, my mother said, ‘The boys are coming over. Don’t say anything. Act like everything’s normal.” The friend and his three brothers spent a couple of days at their house with Mr. Marlow and his brothers, camping out on the back terrace and eating all the constant supply of food that Mrs. Marlow made. “That was her way of trying to make it easier for them,” he said.

A good friend of hers, Jeff Thomas, was very dedicated to La Salette Shrine, Mr. Marlow said; Mr. Thomas would buy bulbs, and Mrs. Marlow and Pat Dooley “would go up there and plant them, and help Father L’Arche with whatever was going on.”

Father Jeffrey L’Arche said that she was a great personal friend and a “wonderful supporter” of the shrine. A great cook, he said, she would bring food, often Polish food, to gatherings or social times after services and would also help to set up and clean up. She was even happy, Fr. L’Arche said, when she was “washing dishes — laughing and telling stories.”

She would often have Masses said for her husband, said Fr. L’Arche, and for her son who died many years before in a snowmobile accident.

She attended St. Lucy’s Church in Altamont for over 50 years, said her son, and then started attending St. Madeleine Sophie and Christ the King in Guilderland. She sometimes went with her friend, Brother Nicholas Casso, to St. Nicholas in Watervliet.

She and Brother Casso both played the accordion, Mr. Marlow said.

She was always involved in the Altamont Fair, said Mr. Marlow. She put flowers on display and got “tons of ribbons.” She didn’t care about the ribbons, he said, “but they were award-winning flowers” and included potted flowers and arrangements.

She was never one to accept help, her son said. After her husband died, neighbors would sometimes offer, when they would see her outside working in the garden.

But when someone else needed help, “She was the first one out there,” according to her son.

Even at the nursing home in her last years, said Mr. Marlow, if another resident was ever having pain or having a problem, she would try to be especially friendly and make that person feel better.

“You can’t help but feel like you were beaming all over, to have her as your mother and to know how special she was, and how loved by people,” said Stephen Marlow. “I think anyone would have wanted her for a mother.”

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Survivors include her sons, Stephen Marlow and his wife, Lydia, and Mike Marlow; her grandchildren, Paul Marlow, Roland Marlow, Aaron Marlow and his wife, Sara, Sarah Lussier and her husband, Bryan, Amy Macoy and her husband, Tom, and Megan Rowland and her husband, Adam; as well as her three brothers, Joe Drezelo, Paul Drezelo and his wife, Kay, and Stanley Drezelo and his wife, Carol.

Mrs. Marlow’s husband, Roland Marlow, died before her, as did her youngest son, John Marlow, her brother, Jim Drezelo, and her sisters, Gertrude Best and Rose Summers.

Visitation will be held on Monday, April 17, from 9 to 10:45 a.m. at Christ the King Parish, 20 Sumter Ave. in Guilderland. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 11 a.m., immediately following the visitation, officiated by Father Jeffrey L’Arche. Interment will be in Fairview Cemetery in Altamont.

The family thanks the staff at the Glendale Nursing Home, Mohawk Trails Unit for the compassionate care given to her.

Memorial contributions may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Pl., Memphis, TN 38105.

DeMarco-Stone Funeral Home is handling the arrangements. Mourners may leave messages for the family at www.demarcostonefuneralhome.com.
— Elizabeth Floyd Mair