‘He loved to build things’

Whether he was making repairs to school buildings, cooking hearty seafood dinners for his family or building a sail boat, Ottabio Hoglievina enjoyed working with his hands.

“He was always willing to help if something was broken,” Barbara Bonciamino said about her grandfather who was a carpenter, painter and the head of maintenance for Long Beach School District, where he worked for 34 years.

“He would come to me and my husband’s home and he’d run up the ladder and would fix anything,” said Bonciamino, now Port Jefferson Station resident. “He made a lot of his own tools, and loved to build things.”

A long-time Long Beach resident, Hoglievina died on Jan. 10 in West Palm Beach. He was 89.

Born on Losinj, an island off the coast of Italy, Hoglievina arrived in Long Beach in 1940. He married Claudia Peranovich in 1942, and built their home on Neptune Boulevard, where they raised three children and lived from 1948 to 1996, when the couple headed south for the warmer climes in Florida.

Hoglievina was an avid soccer fan, loved the beach, built his own sail boat and enjoyed cooking and sailing.

“We would go calming and come back and have a big fish dinner,” Bonciamino recalled about times spent with her grandfather as a girl.

She said he was a devoted family man and a good friend to many, sometimes driving cars down to Florida for some of his elderly Long Beach neighbors.

Hoglievina is survived by his wife Claudia, children Marie Maher and Donald Hoglievina, his sisters Nerina Poglianich and Antionetti Pogliani, four grandchildren, two step-grandchildren and seven great grandchildren. His third children, Virginia Barbasso, is pre-deceased.

Hoglivina’s funeral was held at the Royal Palm Funeral Home in West Palm Beach and was buried on its cemetery grounds.

Comments about this obituary? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.