Helga Koegl Coppola “wanted to live and die by the ocean in Montauk,” her family wrote. And so she did.
Mrs. Coppola began summering in Montauk in the 1970s with her husband, Vincent Coppola, and their family. They moved there full time in the 1980s. “She loved Montauk’s natural beauty, fresh air, and wildlife,” her family said, and could often be found jogging around Fort Pond Bay. She stayed active “physically and mentally” throughout her life and was still walking the beaches at Atlantic Terrace and swimming at Navy Road well into her 80s. She read several books a month and enjoyed crossword puzzles and sudoku.
Her friends described her as a “soft-spoken, classy lady” who was “intelligent, quiet, and had an irresistible smile.”
Mrs. Coppola died of respiratory complications on Feb. 6 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. She was 88.
She was born in Munich on Aug. 30, 1936, to Paul Koegl and the former Maria Marz.
Seeing the hardship in war-torn Germany as a child would shape her character, making her “compassionate and kind to all sentient beings,” her family said. She was a ballerina and champion skier in her youth, athletic but also artistically inclined. She played the accordion, piano, and guitar, and “had a beautiful singing voice.”
She enjoyed the opera and plays, and often gave friends watercolors that she had painted herself. “She would make anything she touched look better,” her family said. “She could get anything to grow, from cactus clippings to large silver maple trees,” and took great pleasure in tending to her potted plants.
An animal lover in general, she was especially fond of her cats.
She also excelled in mathematics, working as a bookkeeper in a Munich bank and continuing to work in banking after moving to New York in her mid-20s.
A job as a nanny for a family on Long Island’s Gold Coast convinced her that she wanted her own large family, and she had that with Vincent Coppola, who was a widower with three children when they were married on July 7, 1963. They lived in New Rochelle in Westchester County, where she helped raise his children and the three children they had together.
She traveled to Europe, Mexico, Jamaica, and Hawaii, and “personified the expression ‘cool runnings,’ ” her family said.
Her husband died before her, after 40 years of marriage. She is survived by her children, Robin Coppola of Montauk, Paul Coppola of New Jersey and his wife, Laura, and Peter Coppola of Montauk and his wife, Shannon, and by her stepchildren, Rosemary Ruggieri of Florida, Dominick Coppola of Florida and his wife, Yvonne, and Deborah Nye of City Island, the Bronx, and her husband, Tom, and by many grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.
A celebration of her life will be held at a future date.
Donations in her memory have been suggested to a nature or wildlife conservancy of choice.
