Profile: Mary Ellen Adipietro, running for the Island

There had been no nurses in Mary Ellen Adipietro’s family, but even as a child, she knew nursing was the career she wanted.

One day in her first year as a student nurse at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City, she came home to her family on Long Island wearing her pink nurse’s aide uniform.

Her cousin was horsing around, playing touch football with a bunch of guys, and one of his friends came to the house and said, “Something’s wrong with Steven.” Mary Ellen went to the field, took one look at her cousin’s arm, saw that it was broken and put a temporary splint on it.

Her uncle Jack was skeptical, saying there was nothing wrong with Steven’s arm and, “she doesn’t know what she’s doing, she’s an aide.” But her cousin’s arm was broken and her nursing skills helped treat what turned out to be a bad break that required surgery to repair.

Lesson learned. Never underestimate Mary Ellen.

Mary Ellen hasn’t worked full-time as a nurse for years, but she’s still caring for people every day. As race director for the Shelter Island 10K for a decade and a half, she’s helped organize and execute an event that’s one of the Island’s most important fundraisers, and one that has introduced a generation of runners and others to the beauty of our Island.

Because organizing one giant fundraising event a year is just not enough, Mary Ellen is also the mastermind of the Shelter Island 5K Run/Walk set for Saturday, October 18. “This course is one of the most beautiful 5K courses, especially coming down Prospect Road in autumn,” she said.

Mary Ellen spends months working with her Race Committee, consisting of Patti Bumsted, Cliff Clark, Louise Clark, Betty Fogarty, Dede Gray, Gina Kraus, Linda Kraus, Ann Loeffler, Lisa Shaw and Linda Springer. They stage this highlight of the glorious Shelter Island fall to benefit the North Fork Breast Health Coalition, the Coaltion for Women’s Cancers at Southampton Hospital and Lucia’s Angels — another charitable organization that Mary Ellen helped found.

Mary Ellen’s work on the 10K, the 5K and Lucia’s Angels has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities over the years.

In the 1980s she met her future husband, Frank, at New York Hospital, where he was a cardiac anesthesiologist and she was a cardiac nurse. Their first visit to the Island together started out as a trip to Martha’s Vineyard, but when a jack-knifed tractor-trailer stopped traffic, Mary Ellen suggested a detour to Shelter Island. Frank executed a U-turn and they arrived in a place they had both seen before, but now saw with new eyes.

Mary Ellen directed Frank to St. Gabriel’s, a place where she had loved to walk on a previous visit. Frank realized he had been to St. Gabe’s before as well, on a Catholic retreat when he was in high school.

In love with each other and Shelter Island, in 1987 they bought a house on Ram Island for weekends. They were regular participants in the Shelter Island 10K, but one year they forgot to preregister. Jackie Tuttle, who handles registration, still enjoys teasing Mary Ellen about how she got them into the race at the last minute.

By the time their son, Liam, was born on a 75-degree December day in 2001, they were living full-time on the Island.

Ever active and tireless, Mary Ellen combined caring for her growing family with volunteer work. Her friendship with Jackie Tuttle led to volunteering for the 10K, and eventually becoming race director in 2000.

Mary Ellen recalls that the 5K Run/Walk got started by a group of close friends sharing and talking, especially Betty Fogarty, speaking frankly about her own breast cancer. “As a nurse,” Mary Ellen said, “that was my real interest and care.”

Knowing there used to be a 5K in October, Mary Ellen said, “We should bring back that race and make it a benefit for breast cancer.” That’s how Betty Fogarty, Gina Kraus, Linda Kraus, Betty Kapalla and Lisa Shaw started planning to organize a race  to benefit cancer patients and their families on the East End.
The death at age 47 of her friend, Lucia Terzi Bagan, was a life-shaping event for Mary Ellen.

“If you were a friend of Lucia’s you were lucky,” she said. Lucia was pregnant with her second child, Daniela, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. “Even when she was going through treatments, she always helped with the 10K,” Mary Ellen said.

When Mary Ellen’s mother died, Lucia was one of the first people to call her. “Lucia said to me, ‘Mary Ellen, I want you to know that I love you so much. That’s something that I want people to say to each other,’” Mary Ellen remembered. “I’ll never forget the conversation. I always think of her at the time of the 5K, of the fact that before she was even diagnosed, she helped.”

The deaths of her mother, and two months later of Lucia, marked Mary Ellen’s deepening understanding of the ways to care for, respect and honor the people she loved.

She and a group of friends put this understanding into action with a new charity called Lucia’s Angels — a charity that funds direct patient care and end-of-life care for people with breast cancer and their families.

She described being part of a group in 2013 that used to gather regularly at Star’s Café in the Heights for coffee. The group included the late Walter Fogarty, a regular despite the advancing cancer that would take his life. Mary Ellen recalls fondly, “Walt would be sitting out there, even in the rain — he appreciated the community there.

A few months before he passed away, Walter told us, ‘I’m going to get into golf again.’” Mary Ellen laughed as she remembered the guys immediately saying to Walt, “Well, we’re not giving you any strokes,” to which Walter responded, “I’m a dying man and you’re not going to give me any strokes!”
Mary Ellen said they pushed back lovingly, saying, “Well, we’re all dying too!“

She’s clear about what makes Shelter Island a special place to live. “The way people come out of the woodwork to support people,” she said. “We take for granted having good health, but when you really need help, there are so many kind people on this Island.”