Many in the Capital Region know the Ecobelli family name thanks to decades of Italian American cooking and Laurina, the generous woman behind the former Ballston Spa restaurant, Ecobelli’s Tam O’Shanter Inn. “She knew everybody in town and almost everybody worked for the restaurant at one time or another,” said Tom Ecobelli, one of Laurina’s grandchildren. 

“She was helping out people left and right. . . . After she passed away we heard so many stories of abused wives that came forward that she helped, people who couldn’t pay their mortgage. Really quietly, she never talked about it, she just did it. She was just a warm, loving person.”