Phyllis Italiano of Springs cared so deeply about her community — about the school, the children, the food pantry, and the beaches, about overhead noise pollution, overdevelopment, air quality, and protecting the clean water — that her letters to the editor became a fixture for advocacy in The Star’s opinion section.
“Her loud voice was heard all the way to Montauk every single week. . . . If there was a committee, she joined and attended its meetings, albeit late sometimes, but attended nonetheless,” her family wrote. “If there wasn’t a committee reflecting a shift in local politics she disagreed with, she formed that committee.”
Active in Democratic politics here, Ms. Italiano was a district leader, door knocker, and poll watcher. Her public access show on LTV, “The Democratic View,” reflected this during more than 300 episodes over more than 10 years.
Genie Henderson, LTV’s longtime archivist, said she admired Ms. Italiano “both on and off set. She had such an energy for her topics, in many ways public access TV’s ideal citizen host, who had a lot to say. . . . It wasn’t just the political Democrats she touted, it was the environment, the people who got things done, the community and how to better it. She made us pay attention, and did it all with a bright, good humor.”
Ms. Italiano died of cancer at home on Oct. 28. She was 88.
She was “a deeply committed woman. She loved the East End, and she wanted nothing more than to protect it,” her family wrote.
A 22-year resident of Clearwater Beach, Ms. Italiano wrote the “Cooking Long Island’s Bounty” column for the neighborhood newsletter for many years. She was a regular at the Ashawagh Hall Writers Group and at programs and lectures at the East Hampton Library, and she volunteered as an usher at Guild Hall.
“She would talk to anyone anywhere as long as they would listen,” according to her family.
Phyllis Mary Italiano was born in the Zerega Avenue section of the Bronx on May 26, 1936, the youngest of three daughters of Michael and Mildred Italiano. She graduated from Christopher Columbus High School, where she was president of her class, going on to attend American University in Washington, D.C., as the first member of her extended Italian family to go to college.
It was at American that she met her future first husband, John William Wetzel, who would become the father of her four children. When her youngest child was in nursery school, Ms. Italiano decided to further her education and took a master’s degree in elementary education from Manhattanville College. She put her teaching certification to use as a teacher at a private academy called the Rippowam Cisqua School in Bedford, N.Y., and later earned a second master’s degree, in science education.
“A lifelong learner,” her family wrote, Ms. Italiano “never stopped taking courses at Bank Street to improve her teaching skills. She constantly worked to better understand the learning process.”
She raised her four children as a single mother. After her youngest graduated from high school, Ms. Italiano remarried and went to work for the Yonkers Public School District, “a district she truly adored,” her family wrote. She earned a certification in education leadership, supported her four children through college, got divorced again, and became an assistant principal at the Hostos MicroSociety School in Yonkers.
“New beginnings for Phyllis were once again on the horizon.” She met the man who would be her third husband “and began truly living her best life.” One of her sisters, the actress Anne Bancroft, sold her two houses on Fire Island, and she began renting in Westhampton, eventually landing in Water Mill. A close colleague at Hostos, Nora Ferrari, introduced Ms. Italiano to Springs.
She “loved to recount the story of her first trip to Springs and how Nora’s husband drove them to Gerard Drive and made them look up at the stars,” her family wrote. “That was all it took. She ate that night at Michael’s and talked about the stars nonstop. She swam at Flaggy Hole the next morning, and that was it.”
Clearwater Beach, she later learned, was only a mile from Flaggy Hole, so that’s where they bought their house. “After two years of being a weekend warrior, they decided the pain of leaving every weekend was too much to bear.” She retired from education and relocated permanently in 2004. She would swim in the bay from mid-April until early November. Last year, Ms. Italiano “made it all the way to Nov. 16, jumping in at Maidstone Cove.”
Ms. Italiano is survived by her eldest sister, Joanne Perna of Yonkers, four children, Joanne Wetzel of Hampton Bays, Ruth Wetzel of Stone Ridge, N.Y., Michael Wetzel of New York City, and Paula Wetzel of Springs, and two granddaughters, Alba Rose Wetzel and Felicia Pearl Franklin.
She was cremated. A memorial service is to take place at her house in Springs on Dec. 7 at 1 p.m. “Dress warm, be prepared to sing her favorite songs, and share memories of her ‘life well lived, indeed,’ ” her family wrote.
