Obituaries
'Angie' of Don & Angie's in Glen Ellyn Dies, Age 98
The restaurant was a Glen Ellyn institution from its opening in 1951 until it closed in 1986.
A founder of Glen Ellyn's one-time pizza restaurant Don & Angie's, which was open from 1951 through 1986, died last week at the age of 98.
Angeline “Angie” Balsamo (nee Roccosanto), of Schaumburg, passed away peacefully among family and friends,; she is survived by two sons (with two sons proceeding in death,) two brothers and four granddaughters, a Morizzo Funeral Home obituary said.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Balsamo immigrated to the U.S. from Italy in 1923 at the age of nine; she married Dominick "Don" Balsamo in 1946 and opened the Glen Ellyn pizzeria after a few years running a hot-dog cart on the Chicago South Side.
Their Glen Ellyn restaurant, opened in 1951, was a pioneer for pizza and quickly became a local favorite, the paper said.
"Mom was a world-class cook, and Dad was a risk-taker," her son Larry Balsamo told the paper. "They opened their restaurant at a time when most people didn't even know what pizza was, let alone crave it. But like Dad would say, 'Your mother's cooking was a risk worth taking.'"
Read more from the Chicago Tribune and from Morizzo Funeral Home.
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