Olive Lazio, World War II veteran, mother of congressman, dies at 100

Olive Lazio was a woman who rubbed shoulders with presidents, a World War II veteran, the mother of former U.S. Rep. Rick Lazio and a devoted volunteer to her community.

Olive Lazio died Saturday, her 100th birthday, at Good Samaritan University Hospital, her children said.

The New York native was among more than 100,000 women to join the groundbreaking branch of the Naval Reserve known as Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, or WAVES, during World War II. The volunteers were considered enlisted officers, although they had no command authority outside of the Women’s Reserve.

Lazio joined the reserve unit at just 19. She worked at a Maryland hospital providing nursing and health care support to Navy and Marine service members who had been on the front lines.

“She was very proud of that. She always talked about it with such pride,” said her daughter, Gale DeSalvio of Central Islip.

Born Olive Ethel Christensen on June 22, 1924, Lazio was the daughter of Danish immigrants and “a Brooklyn girl through and through,” said her son, Rick Lazio of Brightwaters.

He recalled her sharing stories of a happy childhood, despite growing up during the Great Depression — a time of financial hardship that saw the family eating onion sandwiches and waiting for free trees late into the night on Christmas Eve.

She spent her early days playing with dolls gifted to her by her godmother and namesake Olive; roller skating around her neighborhood; and spending hot summer days at Coney Island with her family, where she developed a lifelong love for hot dogs. 

By the time Olive graduated high school, the United States was at war with Germany and Japan. She volunteered to join the WAVES in 1944 and was honorably discharged in 1945.

After giving birth to her first two daughters with her first husband, Lazio moved back to Long Island where she worked as a stenographer and bookkeeper, and married her husband Tony — who also had a young daughter — in 1956. The family then moved to a Cape Cod home in West Islip, where Lazio lived for nearly 70 years.

She didn’t dwell on “the difficulties and challenges and disappointments and tragedies of life. She was one to push forward and not make excuses,” Rick Lazio said.

“She was kind of a feminist before they coined the word, in her own quiet way," he said. "She kind of reflected just this pride in being a woman and having pride in women’s accomplishments.”

After her husband’s death in 1985, Olive Lazio became involved in the West Islip Historical Society, a group of WAVES veterans and a ladies investment club through which she was an early investor in Amazon stock.

She volunteered more than 14,000 hours for the Good Samaritan Hospital Guilds, mostly at a thrift store in Babylon Village, and worked as a bookkeeper at her son’s law firm well into her 90s, even after he left for Congress.

Lazio also met presidents, including Ronald Reagan, both Bushes and Bill Clinton.

“I remember that I took her to a barbecue on the White House lawn and the then-president Bill Clinton, ever a charmer with the ladies, made a fuss over her and they took a picture of him with his arm around her,” recalled Rick Lazio in his eulogy. In 2000, he was defeated in a bid for Senate by Hillary Clinton.

“Of course, the Clintons were political rivals to me,” Rick Lazio, a Republican, added. “One day, weeks later, I walked into her house and saw the photo of her and Clinton on the TV, his arm around her. ‘Ma!’ I said. ‘What?’ she responded with a devilish smile.”

Olive Lazio was especially a woman who loved her family, said those who knew her, including Andrew Siben, of Manhattan, a close friend of the family.

The centenarian had a “heart of gold,” he said, and was “smart as a whip” with a “great sense of humor.”

“One of our fondest memories is the love she had for cooking for her family,” said DeSalvio. “She loved the family getting together and laughing and enjoying each other.”

Angie Carpenter, Islip town supervisor and a family friend, said Olive expressed pride for all her children but there was a “certain special twinkle in her eye when she spoke about her son, the congressman.”

Carpenter saw her at various events over the years, including several for veterans. 

“She certainly was a trendsetter,” Carpenter said of Lazio’s military service. “She was always so genteel, quiet, reserved, warm, friendly, sweet; all the wonderful things you hope a person to be, Olive was.”

She is survived by her children Rick and Gale, another daughter, Roseann Lombardi, of Hauppauge; seven grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren. Her daughter, Yashoda, died four years ago.

Visiting hours were held Monday and Tuesday, followed Tuesday with her entombment at Pinelawn Memorial Park.

By Brianne Ledda

brianne.ledda@newsday.com

Brianne Ledda covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. She previously covered Southold and Greenport for The Suffolk Times and is a graduate of Stony Brook University.