Margaret F. D’Andrea, a longtime resident of Wainscott, died of natural causes on October 6. She was 93 and would have been 94 in just eight days.
She had suffered a mild stroke in 2008. In January 2009 she moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, and resided in an assisted living facility.
Born October 14, 1921, in New York City, she was the daughter of James Faye and Margaret Francis Faye. She graduated from Cathedral High School in New York City in 1939, and entered St. Mary’s Hospital School of Nursing in Brooklyn, graduating as a registered nurse in 1942.
During World War II, she was attached to General Chennault’s “Flying Tigers” Army Air Corps as a combat nurse in the China-Burma-India Theater and honorably discharged as a 1st lieutenant. She told her family stories of flying “over the hump” (the Himalayas) with a parachute and a carbine, “neither of which I knew how to use,” she’d add.
On Easter Sunday, April 6, 1947, she married John D’Andrea and moved to Wainscott. Mr. D’Andrea, a landscaper, predeceased her on June 19, 1976.
Ms. D’Andrea was an active member of her church and community. Some of her activities included being a member of the Wainscott Sewing Society and the East Hampton Ladies Village Improvement Society, volunteering at its Bargain Books every Tuesday for decades. She was a lector and minister at Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Bridgehampton; prior to that she served in the same capacity at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton. She was a volunteer librarian at Most Holy Trinity School while her children attended the school. Whenever she visited her daughter in Atlanta, she volunteered at the American Foundation for the Blind’s National Literacy Center in the area. She established and served as den mother in the 1960s to the Wainscott Cub Scout troop “Den 10, the Wainscott Men.” She was a voracious reader (especially of British mysteries and biographies), an active bridge player who played with the same bridge club for more than 50 years, a lover of crossword puzzles and music, and she loved to travel and visited Italy, China, Japan and Canada. She spent most winters traveling around the country visiting her children and grandchildren.
She was known as a smiling presence behind the counter at Simple Pleasures Bakery in Bridgehampton, owned by her son and daughter-in-law, Paul and Lisa D’Andrea.
She is survived by four children, John D’Andrea and wife Jean of Arizona, Thomas D’Andrea and wife Jennifer of North Carolina, Paul D’Andrea and wife Lisa of East Hampton, and Frances Mary D’Andrea and husband Stephen of Pennsylvania; 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren; and many friends.
A funeral service was held October 9 at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Raleigh. Her ashes will be buried at Most Holy Trinity Cemetery in East Hampton on November 14. Friends and family will gather to celebrate her life at Wainscott Chapel on Saturday, November 14, at a time to be announced.
Memorial donations may be made to the Wainscott Sewing Society, P.O. Box 273, Wainscott, NY 11975.
Funeral arrangements are under the direction of the Brown-Wynn Funeral Home, 300 St. Mary’s Street, Raleigh, NC 27605, (919) 828-4311.
on Oct 20, 2015