Babylon firefighter Ralph Scordino, 93, dies

Ralph Scordino, a Babylon firefighter for 62 years and the father of Babylon Village Mayor Ralph Scordino, died Friday at his home in the village. He was 93.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said the mayor.

"Make sure that you do the right thing," the mayor said his father admonished him when the younger man began his political career running for village trustee.

"He inspired me to do something to make Babylon a better place," the mayor said.

Scordino moved to the area from Massachusetts as a teenager. He and Babylon native Marjorie Horan met at Roulston's grocery store in the village and dated for 10 years while he served in the Coast Guard and she started her nursing career.

The couple married in 1944, and Scordino finished his term with the Coast Guard in 1946. They moved to Babylon Village shortly afterward, and Scordino joined the fire department almost immediately. He became a firefighter "to give something back," the mayor said.

During the next 62 years, he served as captain of the Sumpwams Hose Company and firefighter on some of the toughest fires in the department's history: the Ukranian Church and the Blue Jay Bowling Alley, among others, and the attempted rescue of six children who drowned after falling through the ice on Argyle Lake in the 1960s.

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"There were some horrific rescues," Mayor Scordino said. "That one was really upsetting to him, but one that he never really expressed much about."

Scordino worked at Grumman Aerospace for 25 years as a program director who worked on wiring for F-14 fighter jets and Apollo lunar modules before retiring in 1977.

Scordino is survived by his wife, of Babylon, and sons Ralph, of Babylon, and Robert, of Florida, and a sister, Yolanda Mattioli, of Florida.

A Babylon Fire Department memorial was held Sunday, with services at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Babylon.