01/04/2022
Tanya Louise Ronga, born on October 11, 1944 in Rochester, New York, the second child of Joseph and Miriam (Laboranti) Ronga, passed away peacefully from respiratory failure on December 27, 2021 in West Palm Beach, Florida. She had been in hospice care for a month.
As a child, Tanya was noted for her love of fun, sense of mischief, and outgoing personality. She was also known as something of a tomboy, never shrinking from any physical challenge, and by her early teens was displaying her prodigious vocal talents, belting out the songs of Brenda Lee for family and friends in a spot-on imitation. Several weeks of each summer, Tanya would accompany her mother to a cozy rented cottage in Sodus Point on the shores of Lake Ontario. These were days that Tanya would always cherish: it was here that she learned to become an excellent swimmer and here that as a young teen she first fell in love.
Tanya earned a Radiologic Technologist Associates Degree from the University of Rochester and worked at Genesee Hospital. She then attended Montana State University Billings, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Health, Physical Education, and Recreation in 1970. After graduation, she was the phys ed instructor at Coxsackie Athens High School in New York state for four years before earning her M.A. in Public Health from Central Michigan University.
While waitressing to pay off her college loan, she caught the notice of a customer who was attracted by her lively personality and invited her to come work for him as his salesperson at a company that sold its printing services to costume jewelers. Shortly afterwards, in 1978 Tanya began what became a 37-year career in the jewelry industry, first working for Alan Kaplansky Associates and then for Barrows Industries in the Jene Stylist Division as national manager of sales to all catalogue showrooms throughout the U.S. For a time she served as national sales manager for J.G.L. out of California. By 1983 she had started her own very successful business, T.L.R. Enterprises, of which she was president and which focused on fine jewelry sales to retail outlets across the country. Her skills as an entrepreneur and saleswoman were only reinforced by her strong and winning personality.
All this entailed being on the road for many weeks during the year. Tanya loved the adventure of travel, but she also loved to have a home to return to. When her parents retired to Cape Cod in 1972, Tanya accompanied them. A loving and loyal daughter, she lived with them in West Yarmouth until their passing in the late 1990s, continued occupying the family home for many years, and then in 2016 moved into a new house that she had built on the same block.
Although enjoying a healthy and remarkably active youth, Tanya was burdened with a series of health problems in her later years. It was while she was driving through Florida on a business trip at the age of 40 that Tanya almost lost her life when she was broadsided by a driver who had run a red light. The injuries she sustained involved major rehab and resulted in a permanent metal rod in her leg and a partially paralyzed diaphragm. This severely curtailed her athleticism and seemed to aggravate the other health problems she later encountered. Nevertheless, she always managed to keep her spirits positive, partly through strength of character and partly through her Catholic faith. Despite occasional bouts of loneliness, she was a woman with remarkably few regrets.
Tanya was known among her friends as an avid golfer, a generous hostess, and a great aficionado of animals, especially cats and kittens. She loved the great outdoors and was a talented landscape photographer. Her love of travel, for both business and pleasure, took her to Europe, Canada, all 50 states, Central America, Ecuador, and Tahiti. But of all places, her favorite was Cape Cod. She loved sunning on its beaches, walking them and, for many years, driving her jeep out through the dunes to the farthest reaches of Outer Nauset. She was a member of the Hyannis Yacht Club and enjoyed the camaraderie at Baxter’s Boathouse. She always remembered with affection her years of teaching, and some of the students she taught maintained contact with her through her final years. She never hid her love for her country and always defended it against any who disparaged it. She will always be remembered as a strong independent woman, a unique individualist, and a very loyal friend with a lively sense of humor.
She is survived by her sister, Barbara Maimone of Ontario, New York.
A viewing will be held on Thursday, January 6 from 2 to 4 p.m. and from 6 to 8 p.m. at Doane, Beal & Ames Funeral Home, 160 West Main Street in Hyannis. A funeral Mass will be held the following day, on Friday, January 7 at 11 a.m. at Saint Pius X Church, 5 Barbara Street in South Yarmouth. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Tanya’s memory to MSPCA.
