Former Hauppauge resident D. Passalacqua

Dina Passalacqua was the pillar of her family, a strong-willed woman who kept everyone in line.

"She was always in charge of her life, her family . . . She kept the family totally organized at all times. We had a spotless house," said daughter Susan Gonnelli, 51, of Ronkonkoma.

Passalacqua, a 30-year resident of Hauppauge, died Wednesday of colon cancer at Good Shepherd Hospice Inpatient Centers in Port Jefferson. She was 79.

She was born Nov. 24, 1931, in the Bronx to Italian immigrants, Angelina and Thomas Incantalupo. In her teens, she moved to Brooklyn with her family, graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in Coney Island.

At 22 years old, while at Coney Island beach in the summer of 1953, she met Joseph Passalacqua, then 21 years old and ready to join the U.S. Army.

"She was [lying] on the beach with her friend and I looked at her and I was very attracted to her," Joseph Passalacqua, 78, said.

Soon after the couple were engaged, Joseph was sent with the Army to fight in Korea. Dina waited for 16 months for him to return and they wed in Brooklyn soon after. The two were married for 55 years.

Together they had three children and lived in Brooklyn until 1974, when they bought a high-ranch-style house in Hauppauge. They stayed in the house until 2009, when they moved to Mount Sinai.

"It was on a beautiful piece of property set up on a hill," said Gonnelli, their daughter.

Dina Passalacqua was always put together beautifully -- hair, makeup, perfume all in place no matter what was on the agenda for the day, family members said.

"She went nowhere without her heels," said her daughter.

Shopping, particularly bargain-hunting, was among her favorite past-times, her daughter said. She also enjoyed listening to Frank Sinatra and dancing with her husband to old songs. Their favorite was "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" from the movie of the same name.

Dina Passalacqua was a longtime parishioner at St. Joseph's Church in Ronkonkoma and a member of the Knights of Columbus' Columbiette Auxiliary. She spent most of her life as a homemaker, although she worked for 10 years as a clerk in the state Department of Taxation and Finance office in Hauppauge in the 1990s.

Passalacqua is survived by her husband, Joseph; two daughters, Susan Gonnelli of Ronkonkoma and Virginia Curtis of Hauppauge; a son, Joseph Jr. of Coram; two sons-in-law and a daughter-in-law.

A funeral Mass was offered Saturday at St. Thomas Moore Catholic Church in Hauppauge. Longtime friend of Dina Passalacqua, Msgr. Francis Midura, performed the ceremony.

In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting donations be made in Dina Passalacqua's name to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan or Good Shepherd Hospice in Port Jefferson.