Josephine Crasky, who was 101, died on April 11, three months after a birthday celebration that saw a congratulatory proclamation from East Hampton Town and a lively party at the town’s senior citizens center. An Amagansett resident for most of her life, she had been living at the East Hampton residence of Mary Vorpahl and Kyle Vorpahl and experienced respiratory failure.
“Josephine’s life story is interwoven with the history of the East End,” that proclamation reads, “including vivid memories of the devastating Hurricane of 1938, when her father braved the storm to escort her and her siblings home from school.”
She was a member of the Amagansett Presbyterian Church for more than 70 years, operating the jewelry booth at its annual summer fair, as a member of the Phyllis Adams craft group, and as an elder and deacon. She “lived a life marked by strength, commitment, and community spirit, witnessing and contributing to over a century of progress, while serving as an enduring inspiration to all who know her,” the proclamation reads.
Ms. Crasky’s long life was chronicled in the pages of The Star — an announcement of the Amagansett School’s 1939 commencement exercises, a 1942 note about her wedding and another, the following year, on the birth of her daughter, and a 1959 report on the American Legion Auxiliary in Amagansett, where she served for more than 66 years, among many such examples.
The oldest of four children, she was born on Jan. 7, 1924, at Southampton Hospital to Giacomo (Jack) Stella, who came to the South Fork from his native Sicily, and the former Theresa Riggio, who was called Tessie.
In her first years, her family lived in Sag Harbor. Her father, she said in a 1997 interview for the History Project, was a caretaker for a Bridgehampton estate, “which went down the tubes when we had the Depression. He lost his job and then he . . . came to Amagansett,” where his brother-in-law, Sal Riggio, lived, “and went into farming.” Her father rented farmland that is now Amber Waves Farm. He opened a vegetable stand, at which Ms. Crasky worked while still a child.
During her junior year at East Hampton High School, she met Edwin Thomas Crasky, a native of Erie, Pa., who was serving in the Army’s 113th Infantry and billeted at Miankoma Hall in Amagansett. They married in East Hampton on Oct. 6, 1942. “I never went back to school,” Ms. Crasky remembered. “I was 18 and a half.” The couple lived on Miankoma Lane, and their daughter, Sheila, was born in 1943.
For more than 50 years, Ms. Crasky was a housekeeper for Virginia and Ted Wylie of Devon in Amagansett. She also worked for Tsuya Matsuki, a pianist and teacher, at her studio, the former Miankoma Hall, where her husband had been stationed during World War II. To support her daughter’s education, she worked as an Avon representative, selling cosmetics and jewelry door to door, and was the bakery manager at the Amagansett Farmers Market from 1980 to 1990.
Ms. Crasky moved to Montauk
in 2013, living with her daughter, Sheila Crasky Ray, until Ms. Ray’s death in 2023. For the remainder of her life, she lived at the Vorpahl house in East Hampton.
She is survived by four nephews: Stuart Bennett and Marc Mathews, both of East Hampton, Michael Stella Jr. of Woodside, Queens, and Simon Stella Jr. of Vero Beach, Fla. She also leaves a great-niece, Samantha Mathews of East Hampton. Her husband died in 1996. Ms. Crasky’s siblings, Simon, Michael, and Lillian, also died before her.
A wake will be held today from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. A service will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m. at the Amagansett Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Robert B. Stuart presiding, followed by burial at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton and then a reception at Scoville Hall in Amagansett.
Memorial contributions have been suggested to the Amagansett Presbyterian Church, P.O. Box 764, Amagansett 11930, or East End Hospice, eeh.org or P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978.
