Margaret F. D’Andrea, World War II Nurse

Margaret F. D’Andrea, an Army Air Corps nurse during World War II who was later an active community volunteer in Wainscott and beyond, died on Oct. 6 at Midtown Senior Living in Raleigh, N.C., just eight days shy of her 94th birthday. She had had two strokes in the last few years and had been ill for about 11 months.

Mrs. D’Andrea enlisted in 1942, shortly after she graduated from St. Mary’s Hospital School of Nursing in Brooklyn. She served as a combat nurse with Gen. Claire Lee Chennault’s Flying Tigers in the Asiatic Theater, and was discharged as a first lieutenant. Her family said she liked to tell stories of “flying over the hump,” by which she meant the Himalayas, with a parachute and a carbine, neither of which, she would say, she knew how to use.

She was born on Oct. 14, 1921, to James Faye and the former Margaret Francis. She was raised in New York City, graduating from Cathedral High School there in 1939. She met her husband, John D’Andrea, during her first visit to Wainscott after the war with a friend, another nurse with whom she had served. They married in 1947 and had four children. He died in 1976.

Mrs. D’Andrea became active in the Wainscott Sewing Society and, in the 1960s, established a Wainscott troop of Cub Scouts, known as “Den 10, the Wainscott Men.” She was a member of the East Hampton  Ladies Village Improvement Society, spending several decades as a volunteer at its bookshop every Tuesday. She was a lector and extraordinary minister first at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton and later at Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Bridgehampton. She also was a volunteer librarian at Most Holy Trinity School while her children were students there.

She also worked and made friends at Simple Pleasures Bakery in Bridgehampton, which was owned by one of her sons, Paul D’Andrea, and his wife, Lisa D’Andrea. Between 1995 and 2005 she was a volunteer for the American Foundation for the Blind’s National Literacy Center in Atlanta, when she was in that area visiting her daughter, Frances Mary D’Andrea.

Mrs. D’Andrea was a member of a bridge club in Wainscott for more than 50 years. Her interests also included reading British mysteries and doing crossword puzzles. She loved classical music and Broadway shows, and liked to travel, having visited China, Italy, Japan, and Canada, as well as places in this country where her children and grandchildren lived.

Mrs. D’Andrea’s daughter remembered her as a strong and giving person with a wonderful sense of humor. “She was very caring and loving, and she was very smart and sharp,” she said. “She was a great listener, with lots of friends who really loved her and relied on her. She believed in giving back to the community, staying busy, and doing good work.”

She moved to the assisted living facility in Raleigh in 2009, which was near her son Thomas D’Andrea’s residence. He survives, as do John D’Andrea of Tucson and Paul D’Andrea of East Hampton, in addition to her daughter, who now lives in Pittsburgh. Ten grandchildren and two great-grandchildren also survive, as does Tomoko Shibao, an exchange student from Japan who lived with the D’Andrea family during the 1970s and remained a close friend.

A funeral Mass was said on Friday at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Raleigh. A military service will take place at the burial of her ashes at Most Holy Trinity Cemetery on Nov. 14, after which friends and family will gather at the Wainscott Chapel to celebrate her life. Memorial contributions have been suggested to the Wainscott Sewing Society, P.O. Box 273, Wainscott 11975.