Gloria A. Chiarello of Southampton died on July 25, surrounded by her family. She was 90.
In 1925, during one of Salvatore and Amalia Coppola’s frequent voyages between New York and Naples, Italy, their third and last child, Gloria, was born in Naples. She spent her youth growing up in Brooklyn along with her older brother and sister. She attended St. Saviors High School in downtown Brooklyn, where she enjoyed playing field hockey. It was in Bensonhurst where she met Joseph Chiarello, who lived just a few blocks away, of the Chiarello Stevedore family. After Mr. Chiarello completed his service in the Merchant Marine during World War II, they married at St. Bernadette Church in Bensonhurst. For their honeymoon they drove south to Florida, where they then took a prop plane to Havana, Cuba.
Prior to buying their first and only home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, they had their first two children, Gloria and Joseph. In 1962, after spending the first 15 summers at the compound owned by Mr. Chiarello’s father on the north shore of Lake Winnipesaukee, they found Southampton Shores and rented a summer cottage on Turtle Cove Drive. They bought it two years later. During this time their third child, Lisa, was born. Mr. Chiarello died in 1993 at the age of 66.
After her husband’s death, at the urging of her children, she sold both the Brooklyn and Southampton Shores homes and purchased her first and only new home on Coopers Farm Road in Southampton Village, where she lived until two years ago, when she moved into a smaller, more manageable home on North Sea/Mecox Road.
On March 21, the day of her 90th birthday, she sat at the head of the family table, passed on down to her from her father, Salvatore. At the table were her family, all of whom meant so much to her: her daughter Lisa and Peter Scopinich with their daughter, Molly; her son, Joseph Chiarello; her oldest child, Gloria Doyle, and her two children, Tara Malone and Richard Doyle with their spouses, Matt Malone and Lisa Doyle; and grandchildren, Sadie, Cooper, Georgia and JJ. At the beginning of this meal, Gloria Chiarello recited the toast that had been in their family for decades.
“F-A-M-I-L-Y. What does that spell? Family. Father And Mother I Love You.”
Visitation is at O’Connell Funeral Home in Southampton on Wednesday, July 29, from 4 to 8 p.m.
A funeral Mass is set for Thursday, July 30, at 10 a.m. at the Basilica Parish of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in Southampton. A private burial will follow at Holy Cross Cemetery in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
on Jul 28, 2015