Violanta Silva Lima, died at her home in Milton, Wednesday September 30, 2015. She was 101 years old.  A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated in Saint Patrick’s Church, Dudley Street at Blue Hill Avenue, Roxbury, Saturday October 3 at 10:00 Am. Relatives and friends invited. Visiting hours at the church, Friday 5-8 PM. Interment New Calvary Cemetery.

Today we say goodbye to the only child of Olivia Silva Pina. To some she was known as Violanta. To many others she was known as Dinora. But to her family and all she will forever be remembered as Mama.

Born on the Island of Fogo in the archipelago of Cabo Verde, Mama journeyed to America as a young teenager with her mother in the late 1920s, braving the grueling, often dangerous weeks’ long journey across the vast waters of the Atlantic Ocean to arrive in Boston.

She would stay in the New World a mere eight months, traveling from Massachusetts to the Borough of Midland along the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania, where her mom operated a boarding house for newly arrived Cape Verdean immigrants and where she would attend high school for several months.

She eventually with her mother would make the journey north into the Ontario and Quebec regions of Canada, pausing briefly before returning to Boston and making the voyage by sea back to her beloved Cabo Verde.

More than four decades later in 1968, Mama returned to Boston, where she lived in the city’s Roxbury neighborhood for a period of time before moving out west with her mother to California’s capital city of Sacramento for several years. In the mid 1980s, Mama returned to Massachusetts, where she lived in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester, and for the best part of the last more than twenty years she lived and was passionately cared for by her beloved daughter in the Town of Milton.

Mama was previously married to the late Antonio Lopes Lima of Santo Antao, and gave birth to four children: the late Antonio Mendes Cardoso and the late Olivio Silva Lima; and John Silva Lima and Olivia Silva Lima by whom she is survived. Mama is also survived by fourteen grandsons and granddaughters, eighteen great-grandsons and granddaughters and one great-great-grandson.

Mama lived a quiet and peaceful life, and loved the simple pleasures. Music, especially the traditional Cape Verdean violin, was always close to her heart, and she just loved to clap her hands and dance, and did so right up until the end. She also loved to smoke her pipe, and she continued to do so for nearly ninety years of her life without any major ailments.

Mama gave so much to her family and her friends, and asked for very little in return. She knew what was important to her, and that was being with her own children, and their children. And as the larger family to which she gave birth grew, she remained the nucleus of it, a focus of love and affection that radiated out and touched those around her.

The deep love and sincere affection for Mama is undeniable. She brought people together, and created the strongest of bonds that today we have for her. We will forever hold Mama dear in our hearts and cherish the many happy memories of her.

Mama, we love you and will miss you dearly.