Donald Trump, a former president, paid tribute to Ivana Trump, his first wife. He attended the mother of his three oldest children’s funeral Mass in New York on Wednesday together with his present spouse, Melania Trump.
At the Manhattan church, where Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump were also present, security was tight. A block away from the Gothic-style church on the Upper East Side, Ivana passed away on Thursday after an unintentional fall at home.
Although Donald Trump has a love-hate relationship with funerals, he played a prominent part in the service held in memory of his first wife, Ivana Trump, on Wednesday afternoon in New York City.
After their 1977–1992 marriage to the man she referred to as “The Donald,” the former president and former first lady Melania came with an entourage of Secret Service agents for the Roman Catholic ceremony honoring the vivacious 73-year-old socialite.
Barron Trump, 16, was in the front row with his parents. He is the son of Donald and Melania Trump. Tiffany Trump, the second wife of the Trumps’ first couple, Marla Maples, was present, although Maples was not.
During the two-hour mass, the chapel was “soaked in tears” and covered with thousands of Ivana’s beloved red roses, according to publicist R. Couri Hay.
Ivana’s casket was covered in a purple cloth and crowned with a golden cross as it lay beneath the grand Roman Catholic church’s lofty stone roof.
The Church of St. Vincent Ferrer in the affluent Upper East Side of Manhattan was built in the gothic style in 1918. Donald and Melania Trump entered through an arched limestone and granite side door.
Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump, three of Ivana and Donald Trump’s children, had already accompanied the gold-colored coffin inside for the private ceremony a block from the townhouse where their mother died on Thursday after an accidental fall.
A guest book and a sizable photograph of the former skier and model, looking “beautiful in a blue gown,” Hay told Insider, welcomed mourners at the church’s entrance. He recalled some of the tributes that all three of Donald and Ivana’s children gave to their mother.
Ivanka sobbed numerous times as she spoke to the 400 mourners gathered in the church. The fact that Ivanka lovingly recalled her mother reprimanding her for wearing a miniskirt that “wasn’t tiny enough” brought on many smiles.
Ivana’s motherly advice was to “flaunt it while you have it.” The phrase “There’s nothing I can’t do better than in high heels” was one of Ivanka’s mother’s favorite catchphrases, which she always uttered in her native Czech accent.
Hay remarked that Ivanka, who is her mother’s daughter, “looked absolutely stunning” in a tight black dress and white pearls.
When he was about 4 years old and had a meltdown at Gosman’s restaurant in Montauk, New York’s Hamptons, Donald Trump Jr. recalled his mother’s response.
