Joan Colangelo, 75

Joan Colangelo of Hampton Bays, who had been an assistant to the parish administrator of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton, died surrounded by her family on Nov. 14 at Syosset Hospital in Oyster Bay. She was 75 and had been diagnosed with cancer earlier this year.

Ms. Colangelo was one of three children of Albert P. Pontick of East Hampton, a veterinarian who took over the East Hampton Animal Hospital in 1941. She was born in Southampton on Jan. 5, 1942, to Dr. Pontick and the former Henrietta Wells and grew up in East Hampton, graduating from East Hampton High School with the class of 1959. She received a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts and was a member of the Delta Gamma sorority at the University of Miami. She traveled and lived in Italy for a while after graduating, and returned to Manhattan, where she became a founder and principal at Furniture Programmers Inc., an office furniture planning and contracting firm, from 1972 to 1988.

She and Frank Colangelo, an architect at Leonard Colangelo and Peters, were married in 1971. They lived in Manhattan until Mr. Colangelo’s death, at which point Ms. Colangelo moved to the family house at Dune Alpin Farm in East Hampton. She moved to Hampton Bays shortly thereafter, where she became her parents’ caretaker until their respective deaths.

Her family said she was devoted and generous, taking care not only of family members but also of various pets, which she rescued. They said she enjoyed entertaining and cooking and “was known for her many homemade family specialties like beach plum jelly, clam chowder, and her famous canned tomato juice.” She loved the South Fork, they said, and the East Hampton house, which became the focal point for family gatherings. After moving to Hampton Bays, she especially liked watching the wildlife and sunset over Shinnecock Bay, and the tide going out from Wells Creek in front of her house.

A sister, Judith Bernazzani-Haller of Gainesville, Va., and a brother, Albert Pontick of Sarasota, Fla., survive, as do a niece and a nephew. The family welcomed visitors at O’Shea’s Funeral Home in Hampton Bays on Nov. 19, followed by a graveside eulogy at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton by her niece’s husband, Jeff Opperman, Ph.D., a writer and the global freshwater lead scientist at the World Wildlife Fund.

The family has suggested memorial donations to the Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation, P.O. Box 696, Hampton Bays 11946.