Gail Castelli

Gail A. Castelli passed away Monday, July 29 at OSF St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Ottawa. Visitation will be from 4:00 to 7:00 Thursday evening at the Ottawa Funeral Home. A service will be held at 10:00 Friday morning at the Ottawa Funeral Home, followed by interment at St. Columba Cemetery. Pallbearers will be Christian and Liam Neumann, Jonah and Collin Castelli, William Poutre and Chris Habben. Honorary pallbearers will be Keith and Chris Zehr and Alan and Zel Mileta. Gail was born Gail Annette Whaley in Kinston, North Carolina in 1946. She married Gerald Castelli in 1977 in Ottawa, IL. For the past thirty years she was the owner/operator of Glamorous Nails by Gail in Ottawa. She was the official manicurist for reigning Miss Illinois pageant winners for several years. After sculpting the reigning Miss America in 1986, she was given the opportunity to be the backstage manicurist for the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. She had also been a successful salesperson, representing several companies, and had set a sales record for the Combined Insurance Company. Prior to her sales career, she worked as a counselor for the Illinois Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, where she was one of five nominees for Illinois DVR Woman of the Year. She will be missed by many, especially her loving husband, Gerald; her children, Nathan Neumann, of Ottawa, Brian Neumann, of DePue, Pollyanna Neumann, of Ottawa, Gerald (Kirsten) Castelli Jr., of Grand Ridge, Jennifer (Alan) Mileta, of Vancouver, B.C., and Jeremy Castelli, of Ottawa; her grandchildren, Sadie, Kalie, Ian, Christian, Liam, Mia, Jessica, Jonah, Collin, Aurora, Griffin, Faythe and Cody; her sister, Barbara (GW) Gann, of Hinesville, Georgia; her brother, Alan Whaley, of North Carolina; and Becky, Marilyn, Rosanne, Rosemary and Emma. She was preceded in death by her brother, Jerry Wayne Coker. "God's finger touch'd her, and she slept." - Tennyson