He was her angel – and now he’s in heaven.
The grieving widow of one of the four people killed in Sunday’s horrific Metro-North derailment remembered her husband Monday as a simple man who filled her life with love.
“I loved him very much. He was a wonderful husband, a wonderful daddy…he gave me a good life. I met this wonderful man and he gave me everything I need,” said a weeping Francie Ferrari, whose husband James Ferrari, 59, was killed on his way to work as a super at a building in Midtown.
The Brazilian native, 52, said James was a devoted family man whom she lovingly nicknamed “Gato,” cat in Portuguese.
“I called him Gato. In Brazil we give a name when you love somebody…he was an angel,” she said outside the family’s home in upstate Montrose.
“Jimmy was a very simple man. Everything satisfied him. He loved good food. He loved being with the family. His love made us happy. He was wonderful. I couldn’t ask for someone better than him, he was the best.”
The couple had a daughter, 20-year-old Rebecca, a student at Westchester Community College.
“I’ve lost him. I don’t know what I can do. I have good friends and neighbors. I have to take care of my daughter,” she said.
The couple met more than 20 years ago at a meet-up for singles in Connecticut, shortly after Francie arrived in the US, and got married on May 23, 1992.
“I barely spoke English. We met and he asked me to go out with him and gave me his phone number, I said I don’t think so, I hardly spoke English. He said you call me after seven days. And I did call in seven days and he called back. And after I met him it’s been wonderful,” she said.
”We bought this wonderful house, it’s going to be 10 years [since we moved here]. Everybody loved Jim. He was a good man.”
Neighbor Terrence Ellis said Ferrari lived in the Bronx before the family moved to Westchester, and described him as a hard worker who took pride in his home.