Mrs. Natalina C. Rodriguez, age 89, died of natural causes on Saturday, October 15, 2016 at her home in the Charlestown retirement community in Catonsville, Maryland.

Natalina, known as "Nat," was born in St. Augustine, Florida on December 31, 1926 to Carlo and Giovanna Rogolino. She was the fifth of six siblings, Antonino "Anthony" (1913), Antonio "Tommy" (1917), Vitaliano "Val" (1919), Mary (1923), and Giannina (1930).

She attended the local high school then followed her sister Mary to Florida State College for Women (now Florida State) to graduate with both Bachelor and Master's Degrees in Modern Languages in 1948. She moved to Washington, DC where she worked at the Commerce Department. She moved onto a job as Clerk-Translator at the Census Bureau offices in Suitland, Maryland. After moving to a Suitland apartment with her sister Giannina, Nat met her future husband, Ezekiel "Rod" Rodriguez. They were married at nearby Mt. Calvary Catholic Church in 1953. The couple's first two children, Carlo and Bena, were born in 1954 and 1956. A third child, Daniel, came along in 1958. They moved to San Antonio, Texas where Rod had qualified for a job with the U.S. Army Map Service on a project in northern Mexico.

Just six weeks after their youngest son, Anthony, was born in 1961, Rod's career with the Army Map Service, later the Defense Mapping Agency, led the family to Caracas, Venezuela where they lived from 1961 to 1975. Nat spent her time as a stay-at-home mom and homemaker but worked occasionally as a translator at international trade fairs. In the 1970's, Rod's health began to fail. The couple and their two youngest sons moved to the Panama Canal Zone where Rod could be near a U.S. military hospital. They remained there until retiring to St. Augustine late in 1978. Rod died shortly thereafter and Nat began a new phase in life as a writer, Catholic lay minister helping those in need, and finally settling at Charlestown where she faithfully served her church and its parishioners.

She is survived by her sisters Mary Everett and Giannina Marchowsky, her children, Carlo and his wife Mary, Bena and her husband Brian, Daniel and his wife Elizabeth, and Anthony and his wife Linda, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held at Our Lady of the Angels Chapel at the Charlestown Community, 715 Maiden Choice Lane, Catonsville, MD 21228 on Thursday, October 27, at 9:30 a.m. Her children will lay her to rest at San Lorenzo Cemetery, St. Augustine, Florida next to Rod. Nat requested that donations be made in lieu of flowers to the Benevolent Care Fund, Charlestown Retirement Community, 715 Maiden Choice Lane, Catonsville, MD 21228 .

She asked us to know that, "persons come into the fiber of our lives and then their shadows fade and disappear but all I ask of you is forever to remember me as loving you." May she rest in peace.