Antoinette D’Angelo

Antoinette D’Angelo, a longtime resident of Sag Harbor and North Haven who once ran Sag Harbor’s Emporium Hardware Store with her husband, was a true Rosie the Riveter, joining the war effort by helping manufacture planes for the Navy at the Grumman plant in Bethpage after the United States entered World War II.

She died on Sunday at the Westhampton Care Center after a brief illness. She was 92.

Known as Anne, she was born on March 9, 1922, to Dominic and Maria Leogrande in Brooklyn, the eldest of six children. Her father died when she was 16, and she became the family’s main breadwinner. She still managed to graduate from Sewahaka High School before taking a job as a clerk on Wall Street. She left to work for Grumman.

It was at that time that she met Paul D’Angelo. The two married in 1946 and settled down in New Hyde Park, where they raised two sons, Frank D’Angelo, now of Southampton, and Dennis D’Angelo, who lives in Ringgold, Pa.

After the birth of her children, she took great pride in her homemaking skills, including baking, craftwork, and sewing, her family said. She was so good at sewing that she taught the skill at the Singer Company. She also worked in bookkeeping at Arco Electronics in Great Neck.

In the mid-1970s, the family moved to Sag Harbor and took over the hardware store on Main Street. She worked as the bookkeeper until the late 1980s. The D’Angelos built a house on Coves End Lane on North Haven.

After the couple retired, they began spending winters in Pompano Beach, Fla. But during the summer, their home was on North Haven, where they enjoyed entertaining their many friends and family.

Mrs. D’Angelo was also active in the Sag Harbor Ladies Village Improvement Society, and was a parishioner at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church.

Her husband died about 10 years ago. In addition to her sons, Mrs. D’Angelo is survived by two brothers, Joseph Leogrande of Huntington and Michael Leogrande of Plainview, and three sisters, Josephine Wurm of Noyac, Margaret Dickenson of Manorville, and Rose Knight of Southampton, as well as 7 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.

    Visiting hours were held yesterday at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in Sag Harbor. A Mass was to be said today at St. Andrew’s, followed by burial at Calverton National Cemetery.

    The family suggested donations to East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978.