Anita Bitetti

Anita Bitetti was born on April 19, 1929 in New York City and passed away on January 10, 2026 in Livingston, NJ. She was 96 years old, though for most of her life, she liked to pretend that she was two years younger than she actually was.

Anita was a character and a force. She loved line dancing, the movie Pretty Woman, and listening to Frank Sinatra. Once, as a teenager, she went to see “Frankie” perform at the Paramount Theater and stayed out until 2 a.m., blowing past her curfew to watch performance after performance. For a teenage girl in the early 1940s, that took gumption – and she had it in droves.

When she was 18, Anita went to work for the New York Telephone Company as a "Hello Girl," a manual switchboard operator, who connected calls by plugging and unplugging cords at massive switchboards, requiring speed, calm under pressure, and a pleasant voice to handle hundreds of calls every hour.

She paused her career when she had children, but resumed it again when her daughters went to high school, this time working as an administrative assistant for Anderson & Vreeland in Fairfield, New Jersey.

Throughout her life, you would often find Anita surrounded by friends and family, hosting a dinner party. She could feed any number of people on any budget. She was dynamic, highly capable, and the matriarch of an Italian family that adored her.

Anita was an absolutely unrivaled cook… and a generous one at that. No matter what she made – zucchini, lasagna, Italian wedding soup – you could count on the fact that she had made extra, so that her loved ones would have lots of leftovers to take home. She even made homemade meals of chicken livers and gizzards for the family dog, prepping little packages of them and boiling one every night.

That generosity poured over into her hobbies, as well. Anita was an active member of the Fairfield Women’s Club, a social group that would collect candy, cookies, cigarettes and magazines for soldiers overseas, then gather at the Bitetti household to package them to send to Vietnam. Later, when she moved to Bayville, Anita joined the Rosary Society of St. Barnabas Church. There, she collected and packaged baby supplies for needy mothers. She also waitressed at church dinners and Breakfast with Santa.

Anita married her husband, Joe, on June 29, 1952 and they spent 73 years together. They had two daughters, Joanne and Diane; three grandchildren, Christina, Brian and Adam; and three great-grandchildren, Griffin, Riley and Chloe. They traveled the world, never missed a Mets game, and held hands everywhere they went. It was the sort of love story most people only dream of.

Joe passed away in September at the age of 98. And after 876 months together, Anita could endure only 4 months on this Earth without him, following closely behind.

Anita and Joe lived first in the Bronx, where she was born, then moved their family to New Jersey in 1960. They lived briefly in Saddlebrook, before settling in Fairfield and raising their family there. In the 1980s, they bought a home in Bradenton, Florida, where they spent their winters. They later retired to the Sonata Bay community in Bayville, New Jersey where Anita was in charge of the clubhouse kitchen and ran epic Superbowl parties.

She was predeceased by her parents Mary and Charles Ganci, and her two beloved sisters, Mary Barratini and Vita Cardone. She loved their children – Karen, Christine and Matthew, as if they were her own.

We will never be able to look at an antipasto or listen to the song “Jingle Bell Rock” without thinking of her. But our hearts are full, knowing that our “Poppop and Gram” are together again.

Visiting will be held in the Dancy Funeral Home, 9 Smull Ave, Caldwell, on Thursday, January 15 from 4 to 7 PM. A service will take place at the funeral home on Friday, January 6 at 11 AM; interment will follow at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in East Hanover.

In lieu of flowers, a donation in her memory to the Residents Account Fund, c/o Inglemoor Business Office, 311 South Livingston Avenue, Livingston, NJ 07039 would be greatly appreciated. Donations will be used for activities & entertainment for all Inglemoor residents.

Condolences, memories and pictures may be shared on her remembrance page at dancyfuneralhome.com.