Ivana Trump died in a fall down the stairs of her own apartment in July 2022.
Her mother just marked a hundred years on this earth, surrounded by family in a Miami backyard.
What Ivanka said about sitting at that table with her grandmother every single night will stop you cold.
A Woman Who Buried Her Own Daughter and Kept Showing Up
Marie Zelníčková – known to the family as "Babi" – was born in Czechoslovakia.
She raised Ivana Trump through the decades after Czechoslovakia fell under Communist rule in 1948.
Ivana went on to hold senior roles inside the Trump Organization, running Trump's Castle casino resort and managing the Plaza Hotel.
Then, in 2022, Ivana died at 73 after the fall in her apartment.
Her mother kept living.
Ivanka said it plainly on The Diary of a CEO podcast: her grandmother and grandfather "really raised us."
That is not a sentimental exaggeration.
When Ivanka moved her family to Miami in 2021, Babi came to live with them not long after.
She has stayed in that house ever since.
Every night, Marie Zelníčková sits down to dinner with Ivanka, Jared Kushner, and their three children – Arabella, Joseph, and Theodore.
She tells them stories about Czechoslovakia.
She tells them stories about Ivana – the grandmother they never got to meet.
Four Generations Fill Ivanka's Miami Backyard
On September 26, Ivanka hosted the entire family at her Miami home to mark the birthday.
Donald Trump Jr. showed up with his wife Bettina Anderson and his five children.
Eric Trump brought Lara and their two kids.
All 10 great-grandchildren were in the same room together.
Ivanka called the chance to care for her grandmother "an extraordinary privilege," after decades of her grandmother caring for them first.
She teared up saying it.
"I have a lot of love for this woman," Ivanka said.
A woman who lived through communism in her homeland, crossed an ocean, raised a daughter who ran some of the most recognized properties in New York, buried that daughter – and still reached a hundred surrounded by great-grandchildren calling her Babi.
The Story the Press Keeps Skipping
The press loves to cover this family as scandal, lawsuit, or political brawl.
What gets skipped is the part where a 44-year-old billionaire's daughter still eats dinner beside her hundred-year-old grandmother every night of the week.
Ivanka didn't bring Babi into her home for a photo op – she brought her in because Babi raised her when her own parents couldn't always be there.
You don't outsource that kind of debt. You repay it by keeping the person at your table.
That is the model conservatives have always believed in – family takes care of family, generation to generation, without waiting on anyone else to do it.
Marie Zelníčková buried her own child and kept going anyway.
Ten great-grandchildren now know exactly where they came from because of it.
Sources:
- Kelly McGreal, "Ivanka Trump reflects on 'incredibly special' family milestone spanning 4 generations," Fox News, October 4, 2026.
- Fox News Digital, "Ivanka Trump reveals surprising new living arrangement with her grandmother in Florida: It's a 'privilege'," Fox News, April 12, 2026.
- "Diary of a CEO: w/ Ivanka Trump (Transcript)," The Singju Post, April 2026.
