Helen Patricelli, the matriarch of "Garlic Gulch"

Helen Patricelli's family and neighbors won't forget her striking blue eyes, colorful sayings and knack for cooking delicious meals with whatever was lying around.

And oh my, that dishrag.

Mrs. Patricelli, a feisty woman who once ran a popular Seattle burger joint, often toted around the damp cloth, which she'd wind up and snap if she thought someone was getting out of line.

"If she even grabbed that rag, you knew to shut up," said son Phil Patricelli. "She'd snap it better than a bullwhip. She would snap you in the back of the leg and make a welt so big you could not hardly stand it."

Mrs. Patricelli died of cancer at her Granite Falls, Snohomish County, home Jan. 13. She was 86.

Born Helen Irene Glaefke in 1919 in Cottonwood, Idaho, she and her family later moved to Seattle. She grew up the second oldest of 10 children during the Great Depression, sometimes scavenging useful junk from a nearby dump with her father.

In 1937, she married Phil Patricelli, who sported a Clark Gable mustache. The couple raised four sons in Rainier Valley's "Garlic Gulch," a neighborhood nicknamed for its population of Italian Americans.

During the 1960s, the couple ran Patricelli's Fabulous Drive-in, a hangout for police officers, who enjoyed free meals and coffee. The Patricellis also owned the nearby Hitching Post tavern and a gas station.

Mrs. Patricelli was the center of neighborhood gatherings, called "mom" or "grandma" by many local kids. Neighbors turned to her for homespun advice on gardening and life.

Mrs. Patricelli had a lot of sayings, many of them old-fashioned.

How did she want her eggs? "Blind 'em," Mrs. Patricelli would say, puzzling many a younger waitress. If someone asked a nosy question, Mrs. Patricelli would answer, "Cat's fur to knit a pair of kitten britches," which meant "none of your business." If she thought the question was stupid, she might speculate the questioner had been "born in the crack of a pine tree."

"She just loved digging up all those sayings from the past," said daughter-in-law Kathy Patricelli.

Growing up poor, Mrs. Patricelli learned to cook with anything. Her son Dino Patricelli remembers his mother plucking dandelion greens from the yard and dressing them up with olive oil, vinegar and garlic.

In 1987, she moved with her husband to Granite Falls, where she became the center of a new neighborhood. "She was a real hoot," said Carol Oslin, a neighbor and friend whose granddaughter also grew close to Mrs. Patricelli. "She always had an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on."

The birds of Granite Falls will miss her, too. Mrs. Patricelli kept endless bags of birdseed on hand, and set out pine cones smeared with peanut butter for the birds and squirrels to eat.

Even as she neared death, Mrs. Patricelli exhibited a singular will. She declined pain medication and hospitalization, preferring to die in the same bed where her husband had in 1998.

In addition to sons Dino of Kent and Phil of Enumclaw, Mrs. Patricelli is survived by son Michael Patricelli of Granite Falls. Another son, Luigi, died in 1989. Mrs. Patricelli also is survived by 16 grandchildren, numerous great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held at 10:30 a.m. today at Columbia Funeral Home, 4567 Rainier Ave. S., Seattle.

Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com