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Anthony Michael Messina
Anthony Michael Messina of Sag Harbor died Friday, February 11 at Southampton Hospital. He was 91.
Mr. Messina was born in 1919 in the Bronx, the son of Sicilian immigrants. When he was young, he worked to support his family delivering papers, checking machinery, or selling Eskimo Pies at the ballpark. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and went on to work in the National Guard as a machinist in the shipbuilding industry. Upon returning from special service in the U.S. Navy, he went back to school to become an optician and accepted leadership roles at Polytech University, Kinney Vacuum Pumps, and Varian Corporation, which included a transfer to Rome for two years. He remained with Varian until he retired in 1982. Although he retired from Varian, he continued to work as a consultant for many businesses.
Mr. Messini and his wife summered in Sag Harbor since the 1940s and settled there permanently in 1983 in a home he designed himself.
Mr. Messina was a local AARP leader who taught “55 and alive” driver’s training. He was also a U.S. census volunteer and the lead election inspector for the Noyac voting district, where until age 90 he stayed past midnight each election day to oversee the counting of ballots. Locals often caught sight of him on his daily bike loop from his home in Noyac to the beaches and back.
He was predeceased by his first-born daughter, Nancy. He is survived his wife Marge; three daughters, Christine Urbanowski of Indiana, Margot Meissner of Arizona, and Toni Messina of Manhattan; a sister, Gloria Verolini of Arizona; eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
A funeral Mass was held February 17 at St. Andrew’s Church in Sag Harbor. Memorial donations may be made to the American Cancer Society at cancer.org.
on Feb 23, 2011