Ann B. Wolfe
Ann Brignoli Wolfe, who had spent summers at her Springy Banks Road, East Hampton house since the early ’60s, died of cancer on April 21 at home in Bayside, Queens.
Born in Queens on Nov. 15 to Louis Brignoli and the former Rose Cella, she did not like to share her age. Ms. Wolfe taught drama, speech, public speaking, and English as a second language at William Cullen Bryant High School until retiring some years ago. A graduate of that school and of Queens College, she also held a master’s degree in drama from New York University.
She had an outgoing personality, a breezy smile, and stylish clothing, a nephew said, recalling that years after she retired, former students would stop her on the street and thank her for teaching memorable classes and providing valuable mentorship.
She was married on Dec. 26, 1960, to Harry Wolfe, in Astoria, with a reception following at Tavern on the Green in Central Park. Over the years, they spent more than 50 summers on the South Fork, where she loved to paint, both in oil and watercolor. She brought an artistic sensibility to everything she touched, whether interior decorating or dinner parties, the nephew said.
Ms. Wolfe, a frequent museum visitor and theater patron, held season tickets to Manhattan’s Roundabout Theatre Company and loved attending productions at Guild Hall and the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. She was a regular at both the East Hampton and Amagansett Libraries as well.
She protected the forest of trees surrounding the East Hampton house, the nephew said, never allowing a pruning shear to touch the white pines or oaks, even though she could not back out of the driveway without scraping a branch. She planted two trees on Newtown Lane in East Hampton as monuments to her husband and her twin sister, Rita Brignoli, both of whom predeceased her, and a third tree for herself.
A longtime member of the Ladies Village Improvement Society, Ms. Wolfe helped to sell plants and greens at last July’s L.V.I.S. fair, her favorite volunteer post. In the city, she volunteered at the former Museum of Television and Radio and made many recordings on tape for the blind.
Several nieces and nephews survive. Another sister, Kathryn Ashley, also died before her.
A wake was held on April 24 at the Lloyd Funeral Home in Bayside, with a funeral mass the next day at Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church. Burial was in East Hampton, at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church’s cemetery on Cedar Street, alongside her husband and her twin.
Memorial donations have been suggested to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, 1359 Broadway, Suite 1509, New York, N.Y. 10018 or to Queens College, 65-30 Kissena Boulevard, Queens 11367-1597.