By Angela Marshall
Mrs. Yannelli was born on Nov. 17, 1910 and became an accomplished athlete while growing up in Baldwin. In 1928 she was named a Long Island All-Star basketball center. Her team won the Long Island girls' basketball championships and finished the season undefeated. She also found success as a member of the girls' field hockey team, which also won the Long Island championship that year.
After high school, Mrs. Yannelli graduated from Jamaica Hospital School of Nursing and met her future husband, Dr. Frank Yannelli. They married in April 1935 and opened a medical practice on Grand Avenue in Baldwin that same year.
During World War II, Dr. Yannelli was called up to serve in the medical corps in California. Mrs. Yannelli followed and served as a nurse at the March Field Army Air Force Base. She narrowly escaped death when, soon after take-off, a plane crashed into the ward she had just left.
When her husband was transferred to help in an Italian prisoner of war internment camp in Montana, Mrs. Yannelli returned to Baldwin and began working as a nurse in the chief operating room at South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside.
After the war, the Yannellis continued their Baldwin medical practice until Dr. Yannelli's death in 1986. The couple raised three children, Judge Frank Yannelli, court justice for the Rockville Centre Village Court; Jane M. Rinn and Pamela A. Nichols. Mrs. Rinn is married to Rockville Centre Village Trustee Gregory Rinn.
Growing up, Judge Yannelli remembers playing basketball with his mother outside their house and how she would take advantage of the fact that the kids were deferential to her because she was a woman.
When he was very young, he was impressed by his mother's biceps. "Mother, make a muscle," he would say. But, he continued, she wasn't masculine in any way.
Judge Yannelli said his mother was an emancipated woman before it became fashionable, finding ways to balance her work, social and family life. "Mother had a wonderful life," he said.
Mrs. Yannelli was an active parishioner of St. Christopher's Church and the Catholic Daughters of America.
In addition to her children, Mrs. Yannelli is survived by her brother Arnold Osthues; eight grandchildren, Gregory T., Andrew, Keith Rinn and Chris, Michael and Thomas Yannelli, Jane Nichols and Brooke Weeks. She is also survived by three great granddaughters, Caroline Yannelli, Morgan Rinn and Victoria Rinn.
Donations in Mrs. Yannelli's memory can be made to the Mill Neck Foundation, Frost Hill Road, P.O. Box 100, Mill Neck, N.Y. 11765.
A Mass of Christian burial was held at St. Christopher's Church on Wednesday, Sept. 17. Interment was at Holy Rood Cemetery.
