Aurelio Cerritelli passed away peacefully at his home in Myrtle Beach, SC, on March 10, 2020 after a brief illness. Poppi truly epitomized the American dream. Born in Chieti, Italy, on February 10, 1931, he decided at a young age that he wanted adventure and although he planned to emigrate to Australia, as fate would have it, the ship he embarked upon in the early 1950s instead sailed to Venezuela. Always the entrepreneur, Poppi, who was 19 years old and traveling in steerage, talked his way into a waiter position in the ship's first class. He was paid primarily in cigarettes, which he promptly sold to those in steerage, thus earning money to sustain him upon his arrival in Venezuela. Once in Caracas, Poppi was quickly hired as a waiter at a hotel restaurant and within a very short time, became the owner of his own hotel, the Hotel Comercio in Valle de la Pascua. Poppi was a raconteur who delighted his audiences of all ages with stories from his remarkable life. His years in Venezuela provided the backdrop for many of those stories, such as the time he went searching for diamonds in the remote Orinoco River jungle and had to answer to the jungle's Chief upon his departure by stripping naked to show he was not hiding any diamonds that the Chief wanted for himself. Much to his relief, Poppi, with the five tiny diamonds he found, was dismissed with the flick of a hand. In 1956, Poppi fled Venezuela due to political unrest and came to New York. At his first job, in a factory, the foreman asked Poppi, "What's your name?" to which Poppi answered, "Cerritelli" (pronouncing it "Cherry Telly"). "Ok, Jerry," said the boss and from that day on, Poppi was known as Jerry Cerritelli.

After a number of menial jobs in the United States, Poppi began working for an exporting company, Gillespie & Co., in Manhattan. Because of his familiarity with South America and fluency in Spanish, Poppi's territory became South America and when his boss offered him the opportunity to move there to work, Poppi, who was then married – to the incomparable Lillie McInerney – with two children, jumped at the chance. Nepotism prevailed however, and the boss's nephew got the job. Never one to be held back, Poppi quit that very day and opened up his own American car parts exporting company, which he named Belmar Products, after the "belle mar." He traveled frequently to the Middle East and elsewhere over the course of his successful career (the source of many other stories) and would invariably come home laden with costume tiaras, necklaces and rings, thrilling his daughters. Poppi spoke five languages fluently and was a self-taught intellectual. He especially loved discussing geo- politics and had an uncanny knack for predicting societal changes and economic trends. His ideas, often the subject of lively dinnertime discussions with his children, would invariably be proven correct.

Poppi is survived by his wife, Karin, his devoted daughters and their husbands, Teresa and John Braunworth and Celia and Paul Curtis, his beloved grandchildren, Joseph, Olivia, Diana, Kelly and Sarah, and his many cherished nieces and nephews.