Trump children pay tribute to Ivana at UES funeral

There was nothing she couldn’t do better in heels.

That was the message Ivanka Trump had for the hundreds of people gathered Wednesday at The Church of St. Vincent Ferrer to celebrate the life of her mother, Ivana Trump. Ivana, who died last week aged 73, was the first wife of former president Donald Trump and a fixture on the Manhattan social scene as well as a ubiquitous presence at the Trump Organization during some of its most productive years. She was also, according to Ivanka, unabashed about using her beauty to get ahead.

“She would chide me that my mini-skirts weren’t mini-enough,” Ivanka recalled, saying, “flaunt them while you’ve got them.” When it came to her daughter’s love life, her cryptic advice was “never marry a man with a bad back.” But when Ivanka met fellow real estate scion Jared Kushner and converted to Judaism to marry him, Ivana told others, “Ivanka must love him if she is willing to give up lobster.”

The funeral service was surprisingly short of industry real estate industry figures, though the Trumps and Kushners — including Donald Trump, Charles, Seryl and Jared Kushner — were out in full force with their families. Trump, dressed in a blue suit, sat in the first row with his third wife, former First Lady Melania Trump. Their 16-year old son, Barron, at 6’7”, towered over them both. Despite reports that she wasn’t invited, Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany, 28, was also there to pay her respects with her fiancé, Michael Boulos. Also present was Fox News host Jeanine Pirro.

On a stage festooned in red roses for “Glorious Wednesday,” giant magazine cover blow-ups in gilded frames showed Ivana on a red couch with “BETTER THAN EVER” written in red letters and another, a Vanity Fair cover, depicted Ivana on a yellow couch with the headline, “Ivana Be a Star!”

Ivanka recalled the family’s travels each summer and how Ivana taught them to spear fish on her boat and cook their catch. Her mother, she said, always outlasted everyone on the dance floor.

Speakers included Ivana’s three children — Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric — along with two friends, fashion designer Dennis Basso and the Trumps’ longtime Irish nanny, Dorothy Curry, who remembered her as a “force of nature.”

Basso recalled Ivana coming back to his workshop after a show and telling him, “You’re chubby but we can fix that.” Ivana then ordered seven coats “to be sent to Trump Tower and the bill to be sent to The Donald,” as she called her first husband.

Don Jr. remembered his mother as someone who shattered gender norms. The day after she was divorced from Trump, Don Jr. said, Ivana showed up at her job at the Trump Organization’s Plaza Hotel.

“I’m not sure their jaws have fully retracted from the floor,” he said of the staffers – some of whom, he noted, were at the funeral mass.

And to his embarrassment, when he too got divorced, Ivana called to see if he wanted to move back in with her.

As a toddler, Don Jr. wasn’t the most obedient. When his Czechoslovakian grandparents, Milos and Maria Zelnicek, came to visit and the family dined at Gosman’s restaurant in Montauk, Don Jr. was hauled into the bathroom by his mom who showed him “what Eastern European discipline was about,” warning that if he cried she would bring him back in again.

“From our sense of humor to our sense of adventure, we are who we are because of you,” Don Jr. said.

As the sweet smell of frankincense and myrrh wafted through the historic church, Ivana’s gold casket was brought down the aisle and down a steep flight of stairs to Lexington Avenue by 10 pallbearers. It was loaded onto a hearse and then followed by white SUVs carrying the family to her burial site at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where a small cemetery was created for the family.

At the service, Eric Trump said that Ivana “ruled us with an iron fist and a heart of gold.” He said that Ivana told him last week that she would live to 120, because “only the good die young.”

“The irony of that statement,” he said, “is that she died the next day.”