Pamela C. Anderson, a retired mathematics assistant at East Hampton High School who coached gymnastics, softball, basketball, volleyball, and a champion bowling team, died at home in East Hampton on Sunday. The cause was cancer. Mrs. Anderson, who was 68, had been ill for just six weeks.
She began her career at East Hampton High School as a hall monitor but finished in the math department, along the way coaching a gymnastics team that was eventually inducted into the school’s athletics hall of fame and a bowling team that became league champions.
“She loved everybody no matter who they were or where they came from,” said her daughter Melanie Anderson.
Mrs. Anderson was born at Southampton Hospital on July 23, 1953, to Anthony P. Cangiolosi and the former Molly Welker. She grew up on Accabonac Road here and married her high school sweetheart, Herbert Keith (Smokey) Anderson III, on Aug. 8, 1975. In high school she was an all-around athlete and earned the school’s Gold Key award.
The Andersons had been together since 1966 and both earned their bachelor’s degrees from Tusculum College in Tennessee.
They built a house on Accabonac Road, on what was known as the Cangiolosi Compound, where they raised three daughters. In addition to her love of sports, Mrs. Anderson was an animal lover and enjoyed board games, puzzles, and arts and crafts. She also enjoyed the beach, especially Indian Wells in Amagansett and the Napeague spot known as Truck Beach, and was happy doing “anything as long as she was holding Smokey’s hand,” her family wrote.
Mr. Anderson survives, as do her daughters, Jennifer Corbin of Weaverville, N.C., Melanie Anderson of East Hampton, and Bridget Sokolowski of Sag Harbor. She also leaves five grandchildren whom she adored, Walker and Lauren Corbin and Emma, Abigail, and Frank Sokolowski Jr., and her brothers James and Ricky Cangiolosi of East Hampton.
She was a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church here.
The family received visitors yesterday at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton, and a service followed at the American Legion Hall in Amagansett, with her husband’s cousin, the Rev. Lawrence McErlean, officiating.
He family suggested donations to East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978, or to the Molly Cangiolosi Scholarship Fund, in care of Isabel Madison, 4 Long Lane, East Hampton 11937.
