E. Reinhardt, worker in DA's office, dies

Eileen Reinhardt's signature was her smile.

"People used to ask me, 'Does she wake up smiling?' and I said yes," Reinhardt's husband, Joseph Reinhardt, of Hicksville, said. "She radiated happiness."

Reinhardt, a longtime administrative employee at the Nassau County district attorney's Office, died Monday after a long battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, her husband said. She was 63.

Born the first of three children to Robert and Jean Murray of Queens Village, Reinhardt attended Dominican Commercial High School in Jamaica, Queens, before taking a job as a buyer for JC Penney.

She married her first husband, George Sahaidachny, in 1967, and they had two children, Christina, 43, and Michael, 38.

After splitting 12 years later, Reinhardt took a job at the Nassau County district attorney's office. She began with administrative work for the special investigations bureau, then became an assistant to several executive assistant district attorneys -- most recently Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice's chief of staff, Meg Reiss. She retired two years ago.

"She ended up liking the job tremendously," her husband said.

"Eileen was a wonderful friend whose smile filled every office she walked into," Rice said.

Reinhardt met Joseph Reinhardt through friends in the mid-1990s, he said. "For some reason we struck it off immediately," he said. "She was my best friend."

Joseph Reinhardt said he asked Eileen to marry him many times, and she always said they didn't need to make their relationship legal. But on the eve of her first treatment in 2001, Joseph gave Eileen a ring, and this time she took it.

"I gave her the ring so she'd have something to look at during the treatment," he said. "We considered ourselves so lucky."

In addition to her husband, Reinhardt is survived by daughter Christina Schelin of Greenlawn; son Michael Sahaidachny of Hauppauge; stepchildren Lisa Reinhardt of Manhasset, Joseph Reinhardt III of Levittown, and Amy Longo and Jeffrey Reinhardt, both of Hicksville; 12 grandchildren; brothers James Murray of Lindenhurst, and Michael Murray of Queens Village.

A wake will be at Thomas F. Dalton Funeral Home, 2786 Hempstead Tpke., Levittown, Wednesday and Thursday from 2 to 5 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m.

A funeral Mass will be offered at St. Ignatius Loyola Parish in Hicksville at 11 a.m. Friday.