Obituaries

Frank Tommasini

Frank Tommasini, a resident of Malverne, Long Island, for nearly 70 years, who ran family businesses in Williston Park, Garden City and Riverhead, Long Island, that combined remodeling of kitchens and bathrooms with retail sales of appliances and cabinets, died early Tuesday morning, April 14, at the age of 99. For many years he also had a summer home in East Marion, Long Island. 

He was born on Oct. 26, 1920, in Valle dell’Angelo, a rural village in southern Italy, and, just before turning 8, moved with his mother, Rosa, to Greenwich Village, Manhattan, where they joined his father, Anthony, who had emigrated several years earlier from the hometown to establish himself in America, working as a shoeshine. 

Frank attended public schools in New York, served briefly in the Army Signal Corps, and in 1942 married Margaret Shannon, “my beautiful Irish girl,” as he called her, who died in 1992. 

He is survived by a son John, of Portsmouth, N.H. (and his wife, Arlene); a son Anthony, of New York City (and his husband, Benjamin McCommon); and a daughter, Marianne, of Newton, Mass. (and her husband, James Rutenbeck). Other survivors include his sister Mary Bartolotta of Seaford; four grandchildren (Brian Tommasini and Megan, Liza and Anthony Rutenbeck); and six great-grandchildren (Sean, Erin, Charlie, Theo, Coraline and Arabella). 

Among Frank’s business ventures were Tommasini Appliances, Kitchen & Bath Inc., Tommasini Building Corp. and Eastway Industries. In later years he worked as a representative for Luxor Cabinets. Having not been able to complete a college education in his youth, he later took courses and received a bachelor’s degree from Empire State College, graduating at the age of 80. Frank was feisty and stubbornly industrious almost to the end. A lifelong liberal, he was quick with opinions and an avid viewer of MSNBC. Stella’s Restaurant in Floral Park was practically his home away from home. 

Plans for a memorial in the fall will be announced.

This is a paid notice.