Virginia Kutner, mother of 11 with zest for life dies at 95

With her once-red hair, Woodbury resident Virginia Kutner had resembled Hollywood film star Maureen O’Hara.

But her driving style?

Call it “Dukes of Hazzard,” her son Harry Kutner Jr. also said Monday while fondly recalling the life of a woman he said had an indomitable spirit, was devoted to her family and loved to drive fast.

“She was stopped a lot but cops would just laugh and say, ‘Lady, slow down,’” the Mineola-based attorney added of his mother’s lack of speeding tickets.

Born Virginia Frances Gough, Kutner was the matriarch of an Irish-American clan of 11 children that grew to include 29 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren before her death Saturday at home after a decadelong battle with cancer, according to her family.

The New York City native was 95.

Her late husband, Harry Kutner Sr. — a World War II bomber pilot who became an NYPD officer, then an attorney and then a State Supreme Court justice – predeceased her in 2016.

After marrying in 1945, the Kutners initially raised their brood in a fourth-floor walk-up in the Bronx, where Virginia — known as “Ginny” — would handwash their laundry and use a pay phone when she needed to make a call.

Later, the family moved to Westbury.

Kutner ran a household where a 14-quart milk delivery would only last two days, where she washed the kitchen floor twice a day, and where once a week she lugged two shopping carts worth of groceries home in a station wagon.

The family’s wagon was also how she ferried the children, and sometimes their friends too, to Jones Beach during summertime. There she reveled in her love of the water and sun, said Kutner Jr., 72.

Later in life, Kutner served as a Eucharistic minister for decades while a parishioner at Holy Name of Jesus Roman Catholic Church in Woodbury, where she and her husband eventually relocated.

“The thing that stands out most was she was very strong in her faith,” Kutner’s daughter, Bernadette Del Rossi, 62, of East Northport, said Monday.

Del Rossi added that she would cherish the memory of how her mother called her at the end of each day when she got into bed to let her know she was safe and to say goodnight. If her mother didn’t call by 10 p.m., Del Rossi would call her.

“She was a beautiful soul and a constant and positive presence in mine and my children’s life,” the East Northport woman added.

Never without a smile, Kutner was “like a big kid” to her grandchildren, who appreciated her lively personality and indulged her predilection for jelly doughnuts, Kutner Jr. also said Monday.

“She loved children,” he added. “That was her whole life.”

Four of Kutner’s children predeceased her. Besides Kutner Jr. and Del Rossi, Kutner is survived by her children Raymond of San Antonio, Texas; Christopher and Kenneth of Rockville Centre; Ann Marie Perry of Fort Salonga; and Mary Marchand of Ridgefield, Connecticut. Family will hold a private burial Tuesday at Holy Rood Cemetery in Westbury.