Denise Gorgone, the former owner of Sam’s Auto Service and Mrs. Sam’s Bait and Tackle in East Hampton, died on Oct. 20 at the Crystal Coast Hospice House in Newport, N.C. She was 79, and had been ill with dementia for two years.
Born on July 18, 1940, in Rockville Centre to Curt Carl Dickmann and the former Mary Lanahan, she graduated from St. Agnes High School there.
In the 1960s, she worked for Seaboard Airlines, an international cargo transporter, and then was a chief crew scheduler for Overseas National Airways.
She and Sam Gorgone were married on Sept. 6, 1968. The couple lived on Nassau in the Bahamas with their two children from 1973 to 1976, and moved to Springs in 1976. Mrs. Gorgone started a library at Most Holy Trinity Catholic School in East Hampton and worked as
a travel agent at Cook Travel before the couple opened Sam’s Auto Service and Mrs. Sam’s Bait and Tackle on Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton.
Mr. Gorgone died in 2010.
Mrs. Gorgone ran the businesses on Three Mile Harbor Road with her son, Sebastian Gorgone, for a time. She moved to Beaufort, N.C., in 2011.
She is survived by her son, Sebastian Gorgone of East Hampton, and a daughter, Annie Gorgone of Beaufort. A sister, Pam Dengel of Vero Beach, Fla., a brother, Philip Dickmann of Newport, N.C., and two grandchildren also survive.
Donations in her memory have been suggested to the Beaufort Elementary School library and audiovisual department, 110 Carraway Drive, Beaufort, N.C. 28516.