Dorothy Ann O'Connell, mom of 6 formerly of Port Washington, dies at 99

Whether it was late-afternoon drinks on the back porch of her Florida home, hustling loved ones in bowling, traveling the world, or just playing board games with her kids, grandkids and great-grandkids, Dorothy Ann O'Connell enjoyed life to the fullest.

But, her daughters said, she did rethink her choice of email address, made after taking computer courses at a local junior college in her 70s, when asked to fill out a church questionnaire in her 80s.

The lifelong devout Catholic thought that "comeforhappyhour" wasn't really the moniker she wanted to share with God, after all.

"She had a great sense of humor and she enjoyed her life," daughter Priscilla O'Connell Key of Franklin Square recalled last week. "But, she also always looked out for other people. . . . We could always rely on her and she inspired us to do our best, to become good people. We had fun, but she also gave us the gift of faith."

Dorothy Ann O'Connell died Feb. 20 in Franklin Square. She was 99.

She is survived by six daughters, 28 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren, as well as a slew of stories about the life she lived.

She was the "cookie mom" who turned the garage of her Port Washington home into a makeshift storage depot and distribution center for her daughters and their fellow troop members during the annual Girl Scout cookie drives.

She was the stay-at-home mom who, after her youngest daughter was old enough, volunteered to help children at the Creedmore Psychiatric Center in Queens.

She also was the devout Christian whose social life often revolved around events at St. Peter of Alcantara Church in Port Washington before she and her late husband Tom, a former FDNY official, retired to a lakefront home in Deltona, Florida.

"She made sure when she built that house it had the tiniest little kitchen," daughter Dorrie Forrest of Daytona Beach, Florida, said. "She hated to cook, but she never met a dinner invitation she'd refuse to a local restaurant."

Born Dec. 2, 1921, in Manhattan, O'Connell grew up in Brooklyn, one of four children. She attended the all-girls St. Joseph High School on Willoughby Street before taking a job with the New York Telephone Co., her daughters said.

A power-packed but diminutive woman, the then-Dorothy O'Neill was barely in her 20s when she fell for Thomas O'Connell, a 6-foot-tall firefighter, in 1943.

O'Connell and his twin brother, Dan, had flipped a coin to see which of them would volunteer for the service in World War II. The coin flip came up Dan — and Tom, who was an essential worker, remained stateside to put out the home fires.

Little did he suspect the flame he'd run into with Dorothy, or that she'd had a coin-flip of her own, daughter Dorrie said.

"She told me she was dating two guys and they both asked her to marry — and she picked my father," Forrest said. "She always said she'd made the right choice."

But it was Tom who wondered what was going on when he got to the altar in 1944 and the priest asked if he'd take Helen's hand in marriage.

"My dad stopped the priest dead in his tracks, asking him, 'Who's Helen?'" daughter Priscilla said.

Dorothy's baptismal name was Helen Dorothy Ann O'Neill — and the priest was just going by the official church record.

After that, her daughters said, Helen legally changed her first name to Dorothy.

Over the years, Tom went from being a firefighter at FDNY Engine Company 275 in South Jamaica, Queens, to deputy chief before retirement. He and Dorothy moved from Cambria Heights, Queens, to Port Washington to raise their six girls.

His brother Dan, and Dan's wife, Hazel, who'd lived next door to them in Cambria Heights, followed them to Port Washington. The couples later lived next door to each other in Deltona, where the foursome shared endless rounds of golf and bowling nights, played parlor games and attended church socials, according to family.

Dorothy was a good golfer and a better bowler, daughter Dorrie said.

"She humiliated all of us," Forrest said. "Even in her later years, she'd walk up real slow and let go of the ball and there it would go — fa-loop, fa-loop, fa-loop — and then it would hit the pins and knock them all down. And she threw a 13-pound ball."

Though small in stature, Dorothy drove a big car.

"I think she was the first mom in our neighborhood to have a car," Forrest said. "All the families had one car, but she convinced my dad that with all the girls, she needed her own. She failed her driving test three times. It was the fourth time before she passed. She always got lost. She'd say, 'Remember that building, in case we pass it again, so we know where we are.'"

"She always had a Lincoln Town Car," daughter Priscilla said. "That was her splurge."

Dorothy bought her clothes off-the-rack and was always looking for a bargain — in part, her daughters said, owed to being a child of the Great Depression. Still, she was always well-heeled, they said.

She also loved having friends and family over for happy hour and would celebrate the day with a glass of wine — or, if company insisted, a beer.

She survived cancer, helped husband Tom through his last years battling Alzheimer's, and the two traveled the world, first around the United States in their Winnebago, later on treks to Europe and South America and a bevy of cruises, including one to Alaska.

She spent the last two years of her life under the care of daughter Priscilla in Franklin Square.

In addition to Priscilla and Dorrie, Dorothy O'Connell is survived by daughters Patricia Murphy of Bellerose, Eileen Cole of Ridgeland, South Carolina; Joan O'Connell of Huntington, and Margie Curci of Geneseo.

Her wake was held at the Thomas F. Dalton Funeral Home in Floral Park, followed by a Mass at Our Lady of Victory Parish. Burial was at St. Charles Cemetery in East Farmingdale.

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”