Florence Sgambati, the wife of Village of North Hills Deputy Mayor Dennis Sgambati died of lung cancer on Nov. 13. She was 65.
Like her husband, Florence was active in community affairs as a member of the landscaping committee of the Estates II development for six years.
Shortly after moving to North Hills from Plainview in 1979, she also became a member of Ladies Auxiliary of the North Hills Country Club.
“She had a good sense of humor. She was very caring,” Dennis Sgambati said. “She was very kind and generous.”
She was particularly caring of their only son, Michael Sgambati, through their 43 years of marriage, he said.
Florence Sgambati was born on Jan. 8, 1947 in the Bronx. She took a position as an executive secretary for the Arthur Young and Co. accounting firm in New York City after graduating from William Taft High School, Dennis said.
Sgambati, a construction contractor, said he was on his way to an appointment in the building where she worked when they first encountered each other. He described their first meeting as “love at first sight.”
The couple married in 1970 after nine months of dating.
He said her favorite leisure activities were golf, bowling and a card game called May I. Sgambati said his wife also enjoyed seeing Broadway shows and going to museums and the ballet in Manhattan.
He said she persevered in her protracted battle with the cancer that ended her life. But he said he thought the stress she underwent after Hurricane Sandy- including six days without power, followed by a brief hospital stay – contributed to her succumbing to the disease.
“She hung in tough, right to the end,” Sgambati said.
Along with her son, Michael Sgambati of Searingtown, she is survived by her mother, Rose Aloisi of Derrfield Beach, Fla.; two sisters, Liz Heusel of Florham Park, N.J. and Rosemarie Dimeglio of Pembroke Pines, Fla., and grandchildren Michael and Kristina Sgambati. Her father, Edward Aloisi, predeceased her.
A funeral mass in her memory was celebrated at Notre Dame Roman Catholic Church in New Hyde Park on Nov. 16.
