Joseph John Raffel Jr., 89, a craftsman, painter, miniaturist, and bird carver who retired in 1992 from a 35-year career with the Long Island Lighting Company, died of lung cancer on July 22 at Saratoga Hospital in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Mr. Raffel grew up in Southampton and raised his five children in Wainscott. He was “a kind man” and a “man of strong faith and many talents,” his family wrote. “He loved to garden and create.” His most recent creations, they said, “were rosary beads made of crystals that he shared with his loved ones.”
He “loved his children and his children’s friends,” his family said. In the late 1960s, he put up the only streetlight in Wainscott at the time, on Foxcroft Lane, “so that the neighborhood kids could play basketball well into the evening.” During this time, he also organized and coached a baseball team for his eldest son and his friends, called the Wainscott Wildcats. “He would give haircuts to the neighborhood boys on the deck of his home and always had candy in his pocket to share.”
Mr. Raffel was born at Southampton Hospital on May 13, 1933, to Joseph John Raffel Sr. and the former Jenny Zebrowski. He attended school in Southampton, entering the Navy in 1952 and serving for four years.
On Dec. 29, 1957, he married RoseMarie Boyle. She survives him. The couple lived in Southampton at first and moved to Wainscott in 1965. By that point, Mr. Raffel was already working for LILCO as a lineman and in the emergency service division.
“His greatest love was his wife, RoseMarie, who was always by his side,” his family wrote.
The couple moved to the Jupiter and Stuart area of Florida in 1992 and to Cambridge, N.Y., in 2020.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by his five children, Michael J. Raffel of Cambridge, Karen Raffel DeFronzo and Carolyn Raffel Fitzgerald of East Hampton, Joseph J. Raffel III of Port St. Lucie, Fla., and Doreen Raffel O’Connor of Las Vegas. He is also survived by 15 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren, two great-great-grandchildren, and two sisters, Bertha Stachecki of Southampton and Patricia Sherry of Port Richey, Fla. Two brothers, Eugene and Theodore Raffel, and two sisters, Dorothy Stachecki and Pamela Carabine, died before him.
A memorial Mass was said on Aug. 6 at St. Andrew Catholic Church in Sag Harbor, the Rev. Peter Devaraj officiating.
The family has suggested contributions to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, Tenn. 38105.
