Marge M. Messina Of New Jersey And Sag Harbor Dies February 23

Marge M. Messina (nee Marguerite Marinello) of Sag Harbor and New Jersey died on February 23. She was 100.

She was born on May 21, 1921 in Brooklyn. She and her husband Anthony Messina (deceased) had been long-time residents of Noyac after they retired and moved from New Jersey in the 1980s. She died from complications due to a broken femur at the Job Haines Home in Bloomfield, New Jersey.

Messina was the eldest daughter of Salvatore Marinello, an attorney, and Christina Volpe, a political activist involved in the Democratic Party and suffragist movement. She grew up with strong political convictions, and an interest in reading, theater and travel.

She studied English literature at Hunter College and graduated on June 24, 1942. Eleanor Roosevelt gave her the diploma.

She married Anthony Messina (Tony) in 1942 and had her first child, Nancy, in 1943. Anthony Messina joined the Navy and fought in World War II, while she took care of Nancy at home.

Messina first worked as a secretary, then after having three more children, began teaching English at St. James the Apostle Elementary School in Springfield, New Jersey. All of her daughters had their mother as a teacher there. “She was one of the best teachers I’ve ever had,” said daughter Toni Messina.

Following St. James, Messina moved on to becoming the chairperson of the English Department at Kawameeh Middle School in Union, New Jersey. She later received her Master of Education degree from Kean University.

In 1980, the Messinas moved to Rome, Italy, where she worked as dean of English studies at Marymount High School, an international school in Rome, affiliated with Cormaria in Sag Harbor.

Returning from Rome in the mid-’80s, the couple retired to Sag Harbor where they had built a house in the 1960s. Messina continued to work through BOCES as a teacher of English as a second language. She also became the administrative assistant to Sister Ann Marino, the director of Cormaria.

Messina loved to have fun, her family said. She was the first on the dance floor, to sing a song, or to greet stranger and friend alike. She survived the death of her first daughter, Nancy Morgenstern, in 1975 — a great blow to their family, but maintained her warm eagerness for life. She loved the theater (she and her husband were often volunteer ushers at the Bay Street Theater), music of all kinds, reading great books, and, more than anything, her family said, a good vodka martini.

She is survived by her brother Vincent Marinello; daughters Christine Urbanowski (husband, David Urbanowski) of Indiana, Margot Meissner, of Arizona, and Toni Messina (husband, Marc Ferranti) of Maplewood, New Jersey; eight grandchildren, Angela Morgenstern, Thomas McMahon, Monika Whyte, Christina Egan, Andrea Meissner, Nicolo Ferranti, Nancy Ferranti and Michael Ferranti. She is also survived by four great-grandchildren, Anabella Morgenstern, Emma and Mia Whyte and Shane Eagan.

There will be a funeral service at St. Andrew’s church in the fall when her entire family (many of whom now live on the West Coast) can reunite. She will be buried at the St. Andrew’s cemetery alongside her husband Anthony Messina, her daughter Nancy Morgenstern, her sister Ann Hall, and brother-in-law, Russell Hall.