Margaret D’Ambrosio, Italian teacher and 70-year East Northport resident, dies at 96

The following obituary was submitted by Mary D’Ambrosio. Her mother Margaret D’Ambrosio (November 6, 1928 - September 13, 2025) lived in East Northport, in the same home she and her husband bought in 1955, until the day before she died. Mary was a student at Northport High School, where she followed her mother’s advice and became an editor at the high school newspaper, “The Rag.” She continues her work in journalism to this day, and specializes in writing about international affairs.

Margaret D’Ambrosio, the daughter of Italian immigrants who was the first in her family to graduate from college, and then became an Italian teacher and mentor herself, died peacefully in East Northport on September 13, 2025. She was 96.

Born in New York, she was raised in a city still swelling with recent European immigrants, and steeped in German, Polish, Irish, Greek and Italian culture. She grew up listening to Italian radio, reading Italian newspapers and going to Italian theater, experiences that left her with a lifelong love for Italian life. 

“I could have lived in Italy,” she liked to say wistfully. While she never got her wish, she did make five extended visits, including one in which she worked as an interpreter; another to help her journalist daughter report a story; and a third that included a visit to her mother’s Sicilian hometown, Villafrati near Palermo, where she met the relatives. 

After graduating from Hunter College in Italian studies (over the objections of her father Frank, who insisted that educating girls was a waste, since they’d only marry and become homemakers), she began teaching middle and high school Italian in several Long Island school districts, among them Hicksville and Northport-East Northport schools. 

She met her future husband Patrick while on summer vacation in the Catskills, where her hardworking seamstress mother Rose had sent her, so she and siblings Mary and Peter could escape the city heat. Pat was a country boy, helping his father run a jukebox business. Her ambitious mother thought she could do better. Margaret, as strong willed as her mother, prevailed. Margaret and Patrick enjoyed a happy 38-year marriage, during which Pat became a social studies teacher and school psychologist in the Hicksville school district – and Rose eventually came around. Patrick died in 1988.

Margaret famously helped shepherd several of her children into rewarding careers. When her teenage daughter Mary announced that she wanted to be a novelist, she sat her down. 

“Writers don’t make much money,” she warned. “How about journalism?” 

Her daughter promptly went down to the school paper, and finding the combination of power and prose to her taste, took her advice. 

She also counseled her son Tom – and several of his friends – to become librarians.

She helped her grandson Eric attend graduate school, and he honored her by adopting her maiden name. 

In later years she was an active member of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and supporter of The League of Women Voters, as well as a passionate traveler and gardener. 

She will be deeply missed. 

Margaret, who lived for 70 years in her East Northport family home, was predeceased by Patrick, her husband of 38 years. She is survived by her four children: Mary (Muhsin), Patricia (Harold), Thomas (Kim) and James, as well as by grandson Eric Santomauro-Stenzel, sister Mary Frances Lombardi, and nieces Mary Geralyn and Allison. Her brother Peter Santomauro also predeceased her. 

Visitation will be at Brueggemann Funeral Home, 522 Larkfield Road in East Northport, on September 18 and 19, from 2-4pm and 7-9pm, followed by a service of remembrance at St. Anthony of Padua church, 20 Cheshire Place, East Northport, on September 20 at 9:30am. Family, friends and colleagues are also warmly invited to gather at Margaret’s home in Long Island, on September 20 starting at 12:30pm. 

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her name to: The Alzheimer’s Association, Long Island chapter; The Hunter College Foundation; or Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimó of New York University.