Ellen Galcik, 85

Ellen Marie Galcik of Ditch Plain Road in Montauk, who had been New York State Assemblyman Perry B. Duryea Sr.’s secretary, died at home on Friday after a long illness. She was 85.

Mrs. Galcik and her husband, the late Walter Galcik, started visiting Montauk in the late 1950s, staying at the Ditch Plain trailer park. They bought their house in about 1971, making it their year-round home after Mr. Galcik retired in 1988. She was a probate court clerk at the Bronx County Courthouse before retiring in 1984 and went to work at the Montauk Chamber of Commerce after Mr. Duryea’s death in 2004.

She was born to Walter and Julia Bond on July 1, 1930, in the Bronx, where she grew up and attended Walton High School. She and her husband lived on on Rawlins Avenue in the Bronx after marrying in 1952. She was a waitress in Manhattan in the 1970s before going to work at the court.

Her son, Walter (Peanuts) Galcik Jr., said it took her a while to warm up to living in Montauk full time, but that she came to love it. “She would park her car at the post office and walk through town, talk to everybody, even if she didn’t know them.” She could scarcely pass up a yard sale, her son said, particularly seeking treasures at the Montauk Community Church’s rummage sales and the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons Thrift Shop in Sagaponack. 

Small dogs were another passion, her family said. When her children were young and the family lived in the Bronx, they used to bring home stray dogs. She would clean them up and adopt them, they said. During most of her years in Montauk, Mrs. Galcik had Yorkshire terriers, though her last dog, which now lives with her son, in Montauk and Maine, was a shih tzu.

In addition to Walter Galcik Jr., she is survived by her other children: Karen Galcik of California, Matthew Galcik of Montauk, Richard Galcik of Queens, and Dennis Galcik of the Bronx, as well as by one grandchild and one great-grandchild.

Mrs. Galcik attended Mass at St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk, where a Mass of Christian burial will be said on Wednesday at 10 a.m. Visiting hours will be at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton on Tuesday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. Burial will be private.