Anthony Mineo, 94, of Mastic

By the time he landed in Mastic in 1960, Anthony Mineo had seen enough of the world -- from his native Sicily to a POW camp in the Texas Panhandle -- to last a lifetime.

Mineo, a longtime Manhattan elevator company foreman, died last Sunday of pneumonia at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital. He was 94.

Born in 1917 in Palermo, Mineo had finished college with an electrical engineering degree when he was drafted into the Italian army during World War II.

He fought in North Africa, where he was captured by American troops. He was shipped, via the Panama Canal, to California and then sent to a prisoner of war camp in Texas.

Released in 1946 after four years of dutiful work -- for which the camp commander praised his cooperative spirit in a letter framed and displayed on Mineo's nightstand -- he returned to Italy long enough to meet and marry Catherine Mineo in 1947.

They moved to Greenwich Village in 1948. He vowed to never return to Italy.

"He was so disenchanted with the Italian government, and he never wanted to go back, even when he was dead," said Mineo's son-in-law Mark Herrmann, a Newsday sports editor.

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"He got his wish -- he was buried in Coram," Herrmann said.

Mineo became a foreman with the Curtis Elevator Co. in Manhattan, designing and installing elevators. He worked at the same company until he retired, then took a job at a machine shop in Islandia to stay busy.

"He did that up until his vision failed and he was in his 70s," Herrmann said.

Mineo was a skilled craftsman who built a garage and an addition to his Mastic home. He also wrought an iron fence in his workshop at Curtis Elevator and brought it home, piece by piece, on the Long Island Rail Road.

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The fence still stands, Herrmann said. "That's not going to come down soon."

Mineo is survived by his wife, Catherine, and son, Charles, both of Mastic, and daughter Sandra Herrmann, of Center Moriches.

His funeral was held Wednesday at St. Jude Roman Catholic Church in Mastic Beach, and burial was at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Coram.