On Wednesday afternoon, when Mrs. Trump’s funeral was held at an Upper East Side Catholic church, former President Donald J. Trump, along with his current wife, Melania, were there, sitting in the front row across from the three their children: Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr. The Trump Organization had handled the funeral arrangements and the casket had a golden hue. The Secret Service stood by. Outside the church, St. Vincent Ferrer, photographers and about 100 gawkers stood behind barricades. Perhaps the only sign someone held read: “PRAYERS AND CONDOLENCES TRUMP FAMILY. GOD BLESS YOU AND PROTECT YOU.” Inside, the church was less than half full. There were plenty of Hermès bags, but few bold-faced names from the gilded slice of Manhattan society the couple inhabited in the 1980s and 1990s. Most of the talk about Mrs Trump, who died last week aged 73 in her New York apartment, has focused on her indomitable drive, shaped by growing up in Czechoslovakia behind the Iron Curtain. Those who praised her also spoke of the friendship that Mrs. Trump and her ex-husband had managed to forge, despite the bitter tabloid divorce. (Ms. Trump was briefly married and then widowed before her marriage to Mr. Trump, and the two spouses who followed him predeceased her.) Her children gave her a loving glimpse into her dynamic parenting style. In a speech, her son Eric, 38, described his mother as the embodiment of the American dream, something like a mix of Joan Rivers and Claudia Schiffer, he said. “She had brains, she had beauty and she had toughness,” he said, going on to claim she had won “the hearts and minds of every person in the US on the Home Shopping Network and QVC.” He added: “It still holds every sales record. People loved Ivana.” As a parent, he said, he “ruled with an iron fist and a heart of gold.” Those two things were the subject of Donald Trump Jr.’s speech that followed soon after. “In the tumultuous times of the last few years, with all the attacks we’ve faced,” Mr. Trump, 44, said, “he was the first person to call and see if I wanted, or maybe needed, to come back. with her. That call was both the sweetest and most frustrating thing ever. And he could do that with the best of them, and it was usually on purpose.” When he was a small child, Mr. Trump said, he went with his family to the Hamptons. While there, he performed at Gosman’s (Montauk’s best-known seafood spot) in a way that “exceeded the limits” of everyone’s patience. His mother, he said, took him to the bathroom and showed him “just what Eastern European discipline was.” When it was over, he said, she told him, “And if you cry, we’ll come back here and do it again.” The younger Mr Trump – whose fiancee, former Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle, was sitting across from him – told another story about his sister Ivanka destroying a very expensive chandelier while playing at home with a beach ball. “Ivanka quickly convinced my mother that it was me,” he said. This time the ‘medicine’, as he put it, was a ‘wooden spoon’ and what made his mother even more enraged as she spanked him was his staunch denial that he played any part in the bad behaviour. “Not only had I broken the chandelier, but now I was lying to her,” he said. But when she realized she was telling the truth, Mr. Trump said, she was “too tired to deal with Ivanka.” 40-year-old Ivanka Trump also spoke. Her mother “hated funerals”, she said, tearing up as she spoke of the “pioneer, admired by men and women” for her “grace and beauty”, but also her business prowess and relentless work ethic. She was also the kind of mother who teased her daughter for leaving a party in St.-Tropez at 1am. (“She had stayed until 4”) and scolded her for wearing clothes that were too modest. “My miniskirts weren’t mini enough,” she said. (Mrs. Trump wore a black dress and pearls to her mother’s funeral.) Ivana’s motto, her daughter said, was “flaunt ’em while you got ’em.” “He taught me to study hard, work hard, hold myself with dignity and good manners and never, ever marry a man with a bad back,” Mrs Trump said. “It took me years to figure out that last one.” (Regarding her daughter’s marriage to Jared Kushner, Ms. Trump said, her mother had said that “Ivanka has to really love him if she’s willing to give up the lobster.”) “Now, she’s watching us from above, telling us to dry our eyes, have a good time and dance to one more song for her,” Mrs Trump said. “Mom, I love you today, every day.” The crowd was on Park Avenue and adjacent to the fashion industry, although Whitney Robinson, a former Elle Decor editor who had become friendly with the elder Mrs. Trump in recent years, was behind and said she had “no idea” who the people that existed. But they included Paolo Zampolli, the former modeling agent whom Mr. Trump appointed to the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Dennis Basso, the fashion designer whose high-toned fur designs were favored by Mrs. Trump. Couri Hay, the journalist and gossip columnist. and Jeanine Pirro, the right-wing news anchor. Near the lectern was a poster of Mrs Trump on the cover of Vanity Fair in 1992, above the headline ‘Ivana Be a Star’. One of the speakers would later name all the other magazines she had graced the covers of, including Town & Country and Vogue. But Mrs Trump was living an increasingly solitary life in her later years, according to Marc Bouwer, a designer who dressed her for many years and who was also seated in the back, wearing a black suit, no shirt and a sparkling necklace with jewelry. that he thought Mrs. Trump would like. she was an unabashed advocate of pairing fake jewelry with expensive clothes. “He was isolated,” Mr. Bouwer continued, in a brief interview at the church. “There was a lot of pain, a lot of sadness,” he said, before declining to elaborate. Dorothy Carey, the former nanny to Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric, was perhaps the most impressive speaker. In her two-minute speech, she referred to that isolation, talking about how she was close to Mrs Trump in the spring and summer of her life, followed by an autumn and “inevitable winter” with “roses dying” like her. The former employer’s dream field became a “sinking swamp” of “parasites” who had kept her “alive” with “illegal dreams and plans.” “Ivana, we’ve contacted you many, many times, but apparently we didn’t get far enough,” he said. “We’ve all basically let go and let God, and now you’re completely in God’s hands.” Mr. Basso, on the contrary, described the good years. He recalled meeting Mrs Trump in September 1983 when he showed his first collection at the Regency Hotel and she went backstage to meet him. “He’s standing there in chocolate brown Gucci,” she said, “and he’s like, ‘I like you. You are cute. You’re chubby, but we can fix that.” The next day, he said, he arrived at his showroom for an appointment and left with an order for seven pieces, along with an instruction to “send the bill to Donald.” She was, Mr. Basso and others said, a businesswoman who was instrumental in decorating the hotels and residential buildings her ex-husband had worked on, including Trump Tower, the Plaza Hotel and the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City . And when he ran for president, she was a staunch supporter. Mrs. Trump had shared her ex-husband’s hunger for attention, and it wasn’t easy, others said in interviews, when her celebrity faded and his rekindled, first with the TV show “The Apprentice” and then when he became a successful president. candidate. The grown children he had largely raised became accessories to him. Nearly two hours after the funeral began, pallbearers carried the casket outside to a recess performed by Christopher Macchio, who also sang at the Republican National Convention when the former president accepted his party’s 2020 nomination. Mr. Trump and his current wife, Melania, followed behind the body, followed by Ivanka, Eric and Don Jr. The casket was placed in a black hearse bearing the name of the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home, the quasi-resting place for many members of New York’s elite. She headed next to her ex-husband’s golf course in Bedminster, NJ, where the ground was dedicated so Mrs Trump could have a traditional Catholic burial. It was, in some ways, the former couple’s final joint real estate deal.
