Rico Alessandro, an inspiring friend to many in North End; 52

Rico Alessandro was a fixture at Alba's Produce in the North End in Boston.

Working in a produce market in Boston's North End, Rico Alessandro bridged the old neighborhood with the new. He sold tomatoes to customers who watched him grow up with braces on his legs and made friends with newer residents who never made a sauce.

For the past 15 years, as he walked to work at Alba's Produce on Parmenter Street, the sound of his cane clip-clopping against the walkways drew friends and shopkeepers out to say hello.

"When you saw him and how much trouble he had, he made you appreciate what you have," said market owner Bruce "Albee" Alba.

Mr. Alessandro, who was born with cerebral palsy, died Sept. 21 from pancreatic cancer at the North End Rehabilitation and Nursing Care Center. He was 52.

In the store amid eggplants and his favorite items, cactus pears and chestnuts, he and Alba stoked a gentle banter as Mr. Alessandro struggled with cancer for almost a year.

"Quit? I'll tell you when it's time to quit," Alba would tell him, and the men would laugh.

"I would kind of treat him like it was nothing," Alba said. "He wanted to be treated just like any one of us."

Mr. Alessandro usually sat in a tweedy swivel chair in the back corner of the store next to the tomatoes. His body was racked with pain, but his mind was clear and his spirits were always high, friends said.

"He never was someone to complain about his lot in life and say, 'Why did I turn out like this?' " said Dr. John Foster, who was his doctor for 20 years at the North End Health Center. "He always tried to face things. He understood this was a serious illness that's usually fatal, but he had an attitude that he was going to be one of the ones who beat it."

He appeared to draw strength from wanting to take part in this neighborhood's annual Feast of St. Anthony in August, as he had done for many years, according to friends.

By this August, Mr. Alessandro was down to 120 pounds and needed a wheelchair. As the statue of St. Anthony was carried through the streets, the parade paused to allow Mr. Alessandro time to get up from his wheelchair and add his offering, several friends said.

"The guys carrying the saint were crying. Everyone was crying," said Mr. Alessandro's friend Jimmy Izzo of Boston.

Pals since they were boys, Izzo said his friend helped him through his own life struggles. "To me, Rico had the worst life of anybody I know and he was the happiest person I know," he said.

As a young man, Mr. Alessandro drove a limo for a North End restaurant.

"How he maneuvered the narrow streets and corners is a mystery," said his niece Diane Farraher-Smith of Saugus.

He cared for his elderly parents in the family's home until their deaths - his father in 1992 and his mother in 2003. Both were Italian immigrants from Calabria.

His father, Antonio, who lived to be 96, became a widower in America as a young man and returned to Italy to marry Anastasia (Parisi) Alessandro in an arranged marriage.

The couple had Rico and a daughter.

"He always did what everyone else did when we were growing up," said his sister Annette Salvaggio of Georgetown. "He never let anything get in the way."

The brother and sister were close. "He was always thoughtful," she said.

Mr. Alessandro played Little League as a boy and graduated from the Industrial School for Crippled Children in Lexington.

He loved watching the Red Sox, the Bruins, and "The Three Stooges."

As his strength waned, Mr. Alessandro became bedridden but insisted he was still fighting for his life. He had made a pact long ago with Alba at the market that his friend would not shield him from the truth about his illness.

"At the end, I just leaned over and I had to tell him, 'Give up. It's time to let go,' " Alba said.

On Thursday, wisps of incense and the sounds of "Ave Maria" filled Sacred Heart Church in North Square as mourners recalled the gift Mr. Alessandro was to their lives.

"The North End will not be the same, but Rico is now free of pain, free of his physical impairments," said Farraher-Smith, who also was his primary nurse. "He is gone from our sight but not from our hearts."

In addition to his sister, Mr. Alessandro leaves three other sisters, Connie Russo of Irvine, Calif., Susan Sweeney of Fort Jones, Calif., and Marie of Saugus; and six brothers John and Anthony of Malden, Vito and Joseph of Tampa, Rinaldo "Dickie" of Staten Island, N.Y., and Roger of West Roxbury.

Mr. Alessandro was buried in St. Michael Cemetery in Roslindale.