Florence Wildner-Fox

Florence Wildner-Fox, who died in Buenos Aires at the age of 102 on Sept. 7, came to Montauk in an unusual way. She had been living in Manhattan for a long time and was often in Macy’s, where, while on a lunch break from her jobs at American Express and with the Argentine navy, she stumbled upon a surprising opportunity, her daughter-in-law, Ines Wildner-Fox, said. She was invited to put a $5 deposit down on a house in Montauk and was given a round-trip train ticket so she could go there to see it. It was a Leisurama house, one of many built in Montauk in the early 1960s, and she ended up buying two of them.

  “She came home after shopping at Macy’s and told the family, ‘I just bought two houses, one for my son and one for my daughter,’ ” Ms. Wildner-Fox said. The smaller of the two cost $14,000 and the slightly larger one $18,000. “It was the best $10 investment our family ever made,” Ms. Wildner-Fox said. The thing that Mrs. Wildner-Fox found amazing, according to her daughter-in-law, is that the Leisurama houses came “completely supplied with towels, toothbrushes, sheets, pots, pans, and dishes.”

From that time on, Mrs. Wildner-Fox divided her time between Montauk, Cooperstown, N.Y., and Buenos Aires.

She was born on Nov. 8, 1913, in Buenos Aires to Domingo de Oro and Maria Balmaceda. She and her husband, Ernest Wildner-Fox, whose family had immigrated to Argentina from England, were married in 1935 and moved to Manhattan in 1948. He died in 2007.

 In addition to her daughter-in-law and son, Ernest Wildner-Fox of Fort Myers, Mrs. Wildner-Fox is survived by a brother, Guillermo de Oro, a daughter, Florence Wildner-Fox of Nokomis, Fla., and Montauk, a granddaughter, and three great-grandchildren. Numerous family members are in Argentina.

Partly because her daughter was born on the same day as St. Therese, Mrs. Wildner-Fox was especially devoted to St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk. On Oct. 7, the church bells will be rung in her honor and “Ave Maria” will be played that morning.

Donations in Mrs. Wildner-Fox’s memory have been suggested to St. Therese of Lisieux Church, P.O. Box 5027, Montauk 11954. She was buried in the Garden of Peace in Pilar, Buenos Aires.