Obituary of Nicki Claffey

Nicki Claffey (nee Georgiades) of River Edge, New Jersey passed away on January 16, 2024 due to effects suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage. She was born on December 17, 1941 at Jamaica Hospital to her parents, Michael and Katherine Georgiades, both natives of Greece who immigrated to America in the 1930s, and was the eldest of their three children. Nicki graduated from Jamaica High School in 1959 and soon after landed a job in the automotive industry. She met her husband to be James J. Claffey Sr. during that time and they were blessed with four sons during the 1960s. In the 1970s she anchored the home front while Jim worked multiple jobs to support his family, but that didn't stop her from enjoying hot rods (she always drove convertibles), the beach, bowling leagues, music, and horse racing. She spent a great deal of time with her large Greek family and friends, which often involved elaborately prepared Greek meals, lots of laughter, and card games that lasted until the wee hours of the morning in her "Coubon Blue" home in Flushing. In 1978, the family relocated to River Edge, NJ. The 1980s involved lots of transitions, with the growth of her beloved sons and the challenges of raising boys to be polite, responsible, and hard-working young men--a job that she took very seriously and thrived at and would even say was her calling in life. She was fiercely loyal in supporting her sons in everything they did and spent her fair share of time cheering them on at their various high school sporting events. Following in her footsteps, they all took to bowling in leagues and enjoyed recreational bowling with her. Nicki also had a passion for gardening and wielded the greenest of thumbs and her property in River Edge provided the perfect canvas on which to create her many botanical masterpieces. The greatest one perhaps being the fig tree that was transplanted from her childhood home and that still produces delicious figs to this day. As her sons moved up and out of the home in the 1990s, Mom was finally able to relax a bit and started to focus more on retirement investing (she loved following the stock market), cooking, a little traveling (Greece and Ireland were musts, though she was very much a home body), an occasional Broadway show, her pets (Chuey and Ollie being the stars of the show), and yes, becoming a grandmother multiple times! Nicki was predeceased by her eldest son Michael in 2009, and is survived by her husband James J. Claffey, Sr., three sons, James, Patrick, and Andrew, her grandchildren Noel, Shawna, Charlie and James, her brother Louis Georgiades, and her sister Elaine Danar. She will be dearly missed. The Funeral Mass will be celebrated, on Monday, January 22, 10:00 AM at St. Athanasios Greek Orthodox Church, 51 Paramus Road, Paramus, with Interment following at Holy Cross Cemetery, North Arlington. The family will receive friends on Sunday from 2:00 - 6:00PM for visitation at the G. Thomas Gentile Funeral Home, 397 Union Street, Hackensack. In lieu of flowers, friends and family are invited to make a donation in Nicki's name to Ramapo-Bergen Animal Refuge, Inc. https://rbari.org/donate/donate.html To send condolences, get directions, or for further information visit www.gentilefuneralservice.com