“In the summer, all the boys of the neighborhood would line up on the side deck of our house in Wainscott, and my mother would give them haircuts,” Karen DeFronzo said of her mother, RoseMarie Boyle Raffel.
Born on Sept. 21 during the Hurricane of 1938, Ms. Raffel died of lung cancer on April 8 in Port St. Lucie, Fla. She was 84. At the start of the storm, her parents, Joseph Boyle and the former Elizabeth McCaffery, caught the last ferry from Shelter Island to Greenport, where she was born at Eastern Long Island Hospital. Ms. DeFronzo said that just like the hurricane, she was a force, but a force of love.
Her father died when she was young, and so she took on a caregiving role to help her mother. “She always made things special,” Ms. DeFronzo said. “When we would take long drives to visit her, she always had a crockpot of pot roast waiting for us when we arrived, and chocolate cake. She knew it was my husband’s favorite.”
Ms. Raffel grew up on the North Fork and in Sag Harbor, graduating from Pierson High School before marrying “the love of her life,” Joseph J. Raffel Jr. of Southampton, in 1957. The couple had five children. They moved to Wainscott in 1965, where they lived until 1992 before moving to Jupiter, Fla. Mr. Raffel died last year.
She was a waitress at John Duck’s restaurant in Southampton for 17 years, but also worked at Home Sweet Home Moving and Storage and Sapore di Mare restaurant, both in Wainscott.
“We’d watch the Fourth of July parade from the lawn at John Duck’s. One year she made matching outfits for me and my two sisters to wear,” Ms. DeFronzo said.
She will be remembered as the neighborhood mom, who fed, watched over, and counseled many local kids, her family said. When the boys started a ball team called the Wainscott Wildcats, she formed an arts and crafts club for the girls. Her home was seen as a safe haven. She was known for hosting holiday gatherings and large family parties, her specialties being kielbasa with sauerkraut, baked ziti, and cobbler.
In addition to Ms. DeFronzo, she is survived by her four other children, Michael Raffel of Cambridge, N.Y., Carolyn Fitzgerald of East Hampton, Joseph J. Raffel III of Port St. Lucie, and Doreen O’Connor of Las Vegas. She leaves two brothers, Dennis Boyle of Sag Harbor and Joseph Boyle of Texas. She had 15 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren.
A service will be held at St. Andrew Catholic Church in Sag Harbor on Saturday at 11 a.m., the Rev. Manuel Zuzarte officiating. The family has suggested memorial contributions to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, Tenn. 38105.
