Senior Portrait: The Mazzeos still miss Manhattan

This is another in an ongoing series of Dinner Bell portraits by staff photographer Bev Walz and profiles — MB

“We had a beautiful apartment on East 58th Street,” Marie Mazzeo said Sunday night in a telephone interview. “It was a whole floor through. Anthony and I went to the theatre all the time. I still have boxes of playbills from the 1950s.”

From Manhattan to Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay in 1962 was the first move in their eastward odyssey. They bought a four-family brick house, and Marie learned to drive, a “traumatic event,” as she describes it.

Moving further east in 1964, their next stop was New Hyde Park in Nassau County. By then Anthony was the manager of the Ford Motor Company’s Insurance Department for the Northeast Region. Marie was the guidance counselor for the Sewanaka School District.

Meanwhile Anthony and Marie had acquired property on Country Club Drive in Hay Beach. Cruising through the area one weekend, they had noticed a “For Sale” sign at a parcel on Gardiner’s Bay Drive. It was two acres of waterfront property. In a deft deal with the owner, they bought the property and built a second home in 1982.

When Marie retired from the Sewanaka School District in 1991, she took a position with Long Island University as director of Internship Placement, a post she held until 2008. The internships were, as you might expect, in guidance counseling.

The Mazzeos’ eastward odyssey ended in 2008 when they became full-time residents of Shelter Island. But the connection to Nassau County remains family-strong. Their two sons and their families live in Nassau.

When Marie, whose maiden name is Malchiodo, cooks, she cooks both Northern Italian style, which is where her family hails from, and Sicilian style to honor Anthony’s heritage. And she is definitely the cook at Gardiner’s Bay Drive.

They’ve been Dinner Bell patrons for a little over a year now. “The cooking and the service are excellent. We’ve never had a bad meal there. The people are so pleasant. The Dinner Bell is a happy event in our lives.” These are Marie’s words, but they reflect the sentiments of all of us who dine on Monday and Friday at the Dinner Bell.

I asked Marie if, as a former guidance counselor, she had any advice for seniors on “growing older.” Without hesitation, she said, “Enjoy your life; enjoy every minute; every minute is precious, precious, precious. Thank God for every day.”

As we were about to sign off Sunday night, Marie said, almost as an afterthought, “You know, I think I’ll go through that old box of Broadway playbills.”