Armando Peduzzi, 92, of Quincy has turned his apartment into an artist's studio where he paints colorful and fanciful scenes he hopes will bring happiness to sick children.

QUINCY -- Many kinds of love stories are being shared on Valentine’s Day. This one comes with a diverse and colorful cast and lots of imagination.

Armando Peduzzi, 92, speaks with love and affection for a host of people he has met since immigrating to this country in 1947. Foremost, he expresses longing for his late wife, Celia, “a saint” who died in 2013 at age 85. They met in 1948 in Quincy, married in 1952, and were together for 60 years.

His love of life also leaps from the tales he tells about his youth in Italy, his early jobs in America as a chef working alongside his late brother, his working days in Quincy, and now, the vibrant paintings he does for sick children, whose imaginations he believes run free, like his.

I heard about Armando from Jack O’Brien, one of his neighbors at Squantum Gardens, former naval housing in North Quincy.

Jack, 83, “is like a brother to me,” Peduzzi said.

In a tribute, Jack wrote, “Neighbors can be reassuring or inspirational ... Armando Peduzzi is both. When you live in close quarters in a retirement community, you get to know your neighbors better ... and before long you are sharing in the kitchen.”

It’s where Armando paints for most of every day. It’s where visitors sit and chat.

“His paintings are done in vivid colors with a lot of figures to inspire the kids’ imagination: birds, butterflies, clouds, trees, flowers, sailboats – a collage designed to demand a longer look and thought,” Jack continued. “Children see things we don’t see. They dream. They make-believe. They imagine.”

Jack, one of the kindest of men, finds Armando’s art inspirational.

“His faith is reassuring as it strengthens mine,” he wrote.

A few weeks ago, I dropped by to meet Armando and quickly saw how his apartment tells the story of his life’s accomplishments. Just as Jack said, entering through the front door was to encounter a mini art gallery. Paintings featuring bright reds, blues and yellows and spray-painted with lacquer to bring out the colors were arranged all over the couch and on top of tables, chairs and a bookcase.

Armando, using a cane because of injuries from a long-ago accident, let me in and we went to sit in the kitchen, which is his studio. There are tubes of acrylic paint and brushes lined up on tables and on top of the refrigerator.

On the kitchen table is a marble dove carved by his late father, a sculptor. That, he said, is where it all began. After his father died when he was 8, he would make drawings in the sand.

When he isn’t painting, Armando is taking care of himself.

He comes from a culinary family and does his own cooking. An old chef’s hat is pinned to the wall. Next to the sink is a waist-high rolling table with a cutting board on top. A note of reminder is clipped to wall: “Cash the check!” “Food Shopping.” In another corner is his iPad.

His story has its drama. As his daughter, Amanda Nolan, said, “I think you’ll find my father has had a pretty incredible life.”

After his father died, Armando went to live in a Catholic orphanage in Milan, and then with his sister, who was 11 years older. During World War II, she left the apartment to go shopping and never returned. She was killed at age 33 by German planes strafing her bus.

In 1999, at age 75, his legs were crushed by a milk truck that backed up and pinned him to a car.

He is proud of his 15 years as a final-assembly man at Boston Gear Co. and about as many years working at the Milton’s clothing store. He shows a letter that store owner Milton Katz wrote after he retired. It praises Armando for being “always productive and full of fun and good spirit.” He was the “father of the bride” for all modeling shows.

The conversation always returns to his painting.

“The children I watch on TV have all kind of problems – cancer, a limb missing – and it hit me so hard,” Armando said. “I think I want to do something for them.”

Using his cane, he pointed to a dozen works of art on his couch.

“I invented a way of painting to inspire the kids – they can dream about, they make up things. Children have their own world.”

His imaginary birds and flowers and scenes “don’t exist, but the kids love this stuff,” he said. “My dream is to go to the hospital and donate it to those poor kids.

“I hope I can make then happy and see them smile. This and this and this – that’s for the kids.”

Reach Sue Scheible at scheible@ledger.com, 617-786-7044, or The Patriot Ledger, P.O. Box 699159, Quincy 02269-9159. Read her Good Age blog on our website. Follow her on Twitter @ sues_ledger.

Sue Scheible is a staff reporter for The Patriot Ledger who writes a weekly column, A Good Age, about life after 50. In her blog, she shares extra anecdotes about the people she meets, readers' e-mails, videos, photos and phone messages, and ideas for what to do in retirement or to prepare for retirement. Read more of her columns. Read the blog.