Maria Luukkonen

Graveside service will be 9 a.m. Tuesday, September 9, 2025 at the Gilbert Cemetery with Deacon Mark Skala officiating.

Maria A. Luukkonen, 97, of Sedalia, died Wednesday, January 22, 2025 at the E.W. Thompson Health & Rehabilitation Center in Sedalia.

Born June 20, 1927 in Turin, Italy, she was the daughter of the late Ambrogio Capello and Giuseppina Nervo Capello. She was married to Toivo J. "Tuggie" Luukkonen, and he preceded her in death on January 9, 1978.
During World War II, Mrs. Luukkonen worked in the PX on a military base near Pisa, Italy, selling goods to the servicemen, where she met her future husband. She moved from northern Italy to Sparta, Minnesota with her husband as a war bride in 1947. She worked for over thirty years in Luukkonen's Grocery Store, until her husband's death in 1978, when she sold the store. She then went to work in the Palace Clothing Store in Virginia, and when it closed, she went to work at Shoes & Things Clothing Store, where she worked for nearly two decades until her retirement. Shortly before her 86th birthday, she moved to Sedalia to live with her older sister, Laura Marie Beatty, who preceded her in death on June 10, 2024. Continuing her love of retail, she enjoyed working in the gift shop at Bothwell Hospital in Sedalia.