Angelina Anna Ross
Angelina Anna Ross of Sagaponack died on Sept. 30 at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care in Westhampton Beach. She was 73 and had had pancreatic cancer for four years. Donna Ross Levy said her mother had responded well to chemotherapy and survived longer than most who have that illness. “She was a fighter, very strong willed,” Ms. Levy said.
Ms. Ross was well known on the South Fork in part because she had been a driver for the McCoy School Bus Company in Bridgehampton for 23 years and in part because she was an accomplished golfer and bowler. She played golf at the Bridgehampton and Shelter Island courses and was part of an East Hampton Bowl team, “Just Us,” that traveled to tournaments in different parts of the country, and in 2010 won the national Women’s Bowling Tournament in Buffalo.
Known as Angela, she was born in Southampton on May 21, 1943, one of the four children of Anthony W. Mazzeo Jr. and the former Angelina DeCristofaro. Her family lived on Bishop’s Lane in Southampton and then moved to Sag Harbor.
She was married on July 21, 1963, to Frank Peter Ross, who built their house on Wainscott Harbor Road in Sagaponack. They had two children, Ms. Levy, who now lives in Coram, and Richard Ross, who died before her. The couple later divorced, and Mr. Ross died on Aug. 26 this year.
Ms. Ross graduated from Pierson High School with the class of 1960. She attended the Wilfred Beauty Academy in Jamaica, Queens, going to work at the Robert Abott Salon in Southampton and then Debonair in Bridgehampton. She was a stay-at-home mother for a time, before she became a McCoy school bus driver and then an office assistant for the company.
Ms. Levy said her mother enjoyed going to Mohegan Sun in Connecticut with her sister, Joanne Kelly, and traveling to Turks and Caicos, to Disney World, as well as taking Caribbean cruises. She often visited family members in Massachusetts, and enjoyed spending time with her grandchildren.
According to her daughter, Ms. Ross was well organized and about three years ago, when cancer treatment had helped her feel relatively strong, went over the details of her life to help prepare her obituary. “She had a wonderful sense of humor,” Ms. Levy said, “and was kind and generous, always putting others before herself.”
In addition to her daughter and grandchildren, Ms. Ross is survived by her siblings: Anthony Mazzeo III of Virginia, Minn., Vincent Mazzeo of Sag Harbor, and Ms. Kelly, who lives in Sagaponack. She also is survived by eight nieces and nephews.
A funeral Mass was celebrated on Oct. 4 at the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Bridgehampton, and she was buried at Edgewood Cemetery in that hamlet. Donations in her memory have been suggested to East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978.