Staten Island woman conquers obstacles with optimism
She has been compared to a bulldozer and although that particular power tool lacks her style, it does get the job done. And so does Staten Island’s Fran Reali, as everyone will tell you.
She has been compared to a bulldozer and although that particular power tool lacks her style, it does get the job done. And so does Staten Island’s Fran Reali, as everyone will tell you.
“If she’s asked to get involved with something, she jumps on the bandwagon,” said Gladys Schweiger, executive director of the Alzheimer’s Foundation of Staten Island and a 1978 Woman of Achievement. “If she’s not asked to get involved with something, she jumps on the bandwagon anyway.”
Mrs. Reali, a Sunnyside resident who owns Safari Real Estate in Meiers Corners with her husband, Frank, has had two defining moments in her life, one happy, one tragic.
The happy one came when 13-year-old Fran Ciaramello first saw the man who would become her husband.
She was with a friend and he was with a friend and they were all on Pauw Street in New Brighton, the community where she was born and raised.
“I saw him standing there and there was something about him that took my breath away,” she said. “I was just taken by him.”
What did she do?
“I ran away.”
But not too far. After a long courtship, Frank proposed to Fran outside a dentist’s office in July 1969, a month after she graduated from St. Joseph Hill Academy. That December, they were married.
Their first son, Frank, was born a year later. His sudden death last year, at the age of 36, was her second defining moment.
When she learned an undetected heart ailment had killed the married father of five, she knew she had to do something to save other families the grief hers was going through.
So, in addition to running a very successful real estate firm, and having her hand in many of Staten Island’s charitable causes, she and her husband established a foundation to raise money and awareness of this insidious killer.
ON A MISSION
“I’m on a mission,” she said of the foundation, the Frank J. Reali III Family Foundation.
Her goal is nothing short of changing the way physicians — and insurance companies — look at heart health. A simple cardiogram or echocardiogram might well have diagnosed the ailment that stole her son, but those routine tests are rarely done on anyone under 50.
“Four hundred thousand adults 40 and under die from sudden cardiac death each year,” she said. “Through the foundation, we want to raise awareness of this, determine a correct protocol and put the protocol into practice.” The foundation is working with doctors at Staten Island University Hospital, Long Island Jewish and Schneider’s Children’s Hospital in Manhattan.
“The goal is to take this national but to start here on Staten Island to get it done the right way,” she said.
Although Mrs. Reali wanted nine sons, she was happy with her four: Frank, David, Christopher and Thomas. She describes herself then as a stay-at-home mom, but conceded she did “odd jobs” — like catering and cake-baking, managing a weight-loss center, working at United Cerebral Palsy.
She also was deeply involved at her children’s school, St. Teresa’s, and it was at a baseball game at the Castleton Corners school when someone suggested she should go into real estate. She scoffed at the idea, recounting a bad experience she’d had with a real estate agent. My friend said “if you really hate it that much, you should go into the business and make a difference.”
A CAREER IS BORN
“I’m on a mission,” she said of the foundation, the Frank J. Reali III Family Foundation.
Her goal is nothing short of changing the way physicians — and insurance companies — look at heart health. A simple cardiogram or echocardiogram might well have diagnosed the ailment that stole her son, but those routine tests are rarely done on anyone under 50.
“Four hundred thousand adults 40 and under die from sudden cardiac death each year,” she said. “Through the foundation, we want to raise awareness of this, determine a correct protocol and put the protocol into practice.” The foundation is working with doctors at Staten Island University Hospital, Long Island Jewish and Schneider’s Children’s Hospital in Manhattan.
“The goal is to take this national but to start here on Staten Island to get it done the right way,” she said.
Although Mrs. Reali wanted nine sons, she was happy with her four: Frank, David, Christopher and Thomas. She describes herself then as a stay-at-home mom, but conceded she did “odd jobs” — like catering and cake-baking, managing a weight-loss center, working at United Cerebral Palsy.
She also was deeply involved at her children’s school, St. Teresa’s, and it was at a baseball game at the Castleton Corners school when someone suggested she should go into real estate. She scoffed at the idea, recounting a bad experience she’d had with a real estate agent. My friend said “if you really hate it that much, you should go into the business and make a difference.”
PRAYER SHAWL MINISTRY
She also started a prayer shawl ministry at St. Teresa’s Church after what would have been a defining moment for many people became just another obstacle to conquer with her characteristic optimism.
At her son’s wake, she felt her neck swelling. The next thing she knew, she was diagnosed with a rare lymphoma and had to undergo two months of daily radiation treatments. In her office, she keeps the ghoulish mask the technicians at Beth Israel in Manhattan used to bolt her head to the table to keep her still.
While she was recovering, a prayer shawl arrived from Great Kills Moravian Church.
“It was a hug from God,” she said. Now the prayer shawl ministry at St. Teresa’s is sending those hugs to other people who need them.
“God gives us all gifts, I really believe that,” she said. “Some of us choose to see them or feel them or understand them. I ask God every day to let me hear the knock on the door of opportunity so I can help someone. I’m obsessed with helping people.”