Island obituary: Mildred (Mil) Hundgen

Mildred (Mil) Hundgen died peacefully on January 8, 2013 in Southampton. She was 93.

Born in Manhattan on June 17, 1919 to Henry and Emma Ulrich and raised in the Bronx, she had three brothers and three sisters. She always loved the beach; from early childhood, her family traveled by train to Rockaway. She continued that tradition with her own children.

According to her family, she could be found at the ocean every day in the summer, and at Sagg Main Beach was known as “Gram,” not only to her four grandsons, but to all of their friends who hung out there. She taught three generations of kids to swim in the ocean and was always the first one in the water and the last one to leave.

She married Clarence (Larry) Hundgen in 1943, and had three sons, Richard, Thomas and Robert, and a daughter Chris. In the 1950s, Larry and Mil started coming to Southampton during the summers and moved permanently to Bay View Oaks in Southampton in the 1960s. Both Larry and Mil served on the Southampton Architectural Review Board. She loved all kinds of handcrafts and was active for many years in the Southampton Homemakers Extension Group.

She was pre-deceased by her parents; her husband Larry; her sisters, Grace and Emma; her brothers Bill, Ed and Henry; and her son Rob. She leaves behind her sister Ginnie of the Bronx; daughter and caregiver, Chris Brunner (John) of Bayport; sons Richard of San Francisco and Tom (JoAnn) of Shelter Island; grandsons Jason, Christian (Francesca), Quentin, Morgan and Quinn; great-grandsons Joshua and Jack; and numerous nieces and nephews.