Catherine Pucciarelli, the Village of Rockville Centre’s first woman trustee, dies at 85

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Catherine Pucciarelli, a former trustee and deputy mayor for the Village of Rockville Centre, died on March 27 at age 85. Elected to the Village Board of Trustees in 1975, she was the village’s first woman trustee.

Pucciarelli “had boundless energy,” said her daughter, Clare Cassara.

Since moving to the village in 1965 with her husband, the late Joe Pucciarelli, she remained involved with the community. She started out as a member of the Riverside Elementary School PTA, and worked her way up to become Officer of the Council of PTAs.

Pucciarelli joined the Economic Opportunity Council, of which she eventually became chairperson. She was also a member of the Rockville Centre chapter of the Poor People’s Campaign, an organization that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., helped to create. Along with other members, she helped get King to speak at South Side Junior High School on March 26, 1968, just nine days before his assassination in Memphis.

While she was a stay-at-home mother, her children said she was actually “nothing of the sort” due to all her volunteer work. Yet still, “she was constantly there for us all the time,” Cassara said.

“We all sit there and say, ‘I don’t know how she did all this as a mother,’” she added. “She just did it, and her family always came first.”

Pucciarelli was born on Dec. 2, 1934 in Yonkers. She received a bachelor’s degree from the College of New Rochelle in 1956 and a master’s degree from Fordham University in 1962. She then began a career in advertising with B. Altman in Manhattan, writing and overseeing live commercials for The Today Show. There, she met Joe, who also worked for the company. She and Joe were married on Nov. 15, 1958.

Pucciarelli was first elected to the village board in 1975. She was the first woman to become a trustee in village history. She served for four years and then, was deputy mayor from 1981 to 1985.

During her tenure on the board, she helped develop the Sandel Senior Center. Later on, she created a humanities program for the center, in conjunction with the National Council on Aging, and was a featured speaker at the National Convention on Aging.

Pucciarelli served ten years on the village planning board, was a member of the Bi-Centennial Committee, and volunteered with the Hispanic Brotherhood of Rockville Centre.

Pucciarelli was also president and board member of the Rosa Lee Young Childhood Center, all the while working full time for the Nassau BOCES Department of Special Education, where she served for more than 23 years as an information specialist.

Upon retirement from Nassau BOCES, Pucciarelli became an adjunct professor at Molloy College, teaching “Women in Politics.” She also became chairperson for the Nassau BOCES Educational Foundation. She is responsible for raising more than $250,000 to enhance educational opportunities for all students in Nassau BOCES schools, services and programs.

Pucciarelli is survived by her four children, Clare Cassara, Ann Dillon, Peter Pucciarelli and John Pucciarelli, and grandchildren, Catherine, Morgan and Thomas Dillon, Matthew and Ashley DeAngelis, and Lynn, Julia and Joseph Pucciarelli.

Services will be held at a later date.