Frank Sigismondi, who worked at Newsday from 1967 through 2002,...

Frank Sigismondi, who worked at Newsday from 1967 through 2002, was a collector of antique cars, restoring old models to their original glory. Credit: Sigismondi Family

Fearless enough to become a teen jockey, wise enough to become a much-loved manager, imaginative enough to invent a device to keep collators' fingers safe, and skilled enough to open a siding business.

To that partial list of Frank Sigismondi’s accomplishments, add his key role in building Newsday's original collating department, a passion for restoring classic American cars and his devotion to his children and grandchildren.

Sigismondi, of Wading River, died Feb. 25 at age of 78 after a three-year-battle with cancer.

“He treated everybody with respect; I run into people who used to work with him — we have such a rare last name,” said his son Paul Sigismondi of Sound Beach, explaining how strangers would make the connection.

Frank Sigismondi, collating operator, reading the Newsday directory in the...

Frank Sigismondi, collating operator, reading the Newsday directory in the 1980s. Credit: Newsday

“And multiple times, people say, ‘He was the best boss I ever worked for; he always treated us good'; there wasn’t a dry eye at his retirement party,” said his son. "He was like the town mayor; everyone knew and loved him; he was always willing to lend a hand, help somebody out.”

Even after his children, two sons and a daughter, had moved out, if their friends needed a temporary place, his parents welcomed them.

To Tony Lipani, Newsday's director of packaging, planning and business services, and a colleague for three decades, Sigismondi was “really a gentleman, a good family man, a good father.”

“You’re going to hear that from everybody,” Lipani said. “Everybody liked him; he was very fair,” he said. “He taught me a lot about people and how to treat people.”

Growing up in Queens Village, Sigismondi attended Andrew Jackson High School.

The happenstance of a friend whose father worked for Delaware’s prizewinning Brandywine Stable and trainer Virgil “Buddy” Raines led him to leave home at 16 to become a jockey — with some perilous rides — until a growth spurt at 19 pushed him to 5-foot-4½ — and over the 115-pound weight limit.

“He almost died once or twice,” his son said. After starting out exercising horses, Sigismondi progressed to races, including steeplechases.

At one steeplechase race, two horses collided over a jump, and his mount fell on him.

“Fortunately, it had rained the night before, so it was all mud,” which cushioned him, his son said, but his father was stuck there, “watching all these horses coming over the jumps … with their hoofs landing inches from him,” until all the steeds had gone by, and workers could “peel him out.”

Returning to his family, now in Dix Hills, Sigismondi set up an aluminum siding shop, and worked for surveyors at an electronics firm before joining the U.S. Army Reserve in 1964. Activated in 1970, he was a Specialist 5, a junior enlisted rank, when honorably discharged that year.

Hired by Newsday on Sept. 18, 1967 — the same year he met the woman he would marry, Diane Bronchal, at a party — he retired on Feb. 28, 2002, as a packaging foreman.

“At work, he is affectionately known as ‘Sigi,’” recalled Frank Cutrone, Newsday's chief of operations. “Everyone who knows him only says kind things about him.”

Sigismondi, he said, “helped build Newsday’s original collating department and was at Newsday when they produced the first Sunday edition of Newsday [on] April 9, 1972.”

Sigismondi also designed a device that his son Paul was able to shape into a sheet-metal guard that helped protect collators from hand injury.

After marrying in May 1971, he and his wife moved to St. James, and then Wading River in 1978.

Letter by Frank and Diane Sigismondi in Newsday in 1974

An enthusiastic camper, Sigismondi was a pillar of his sons’ Boy Scout Troop 94. “He was touted by the Troop’s scoutmaster … as being the best quartermaster [equipment caretaker] they ever had in his 37 years in the troop,” his son said, noting his dad kept at it for five years after his sons aged out.

“After retirement, never being one who could sit still, he reopened his siding and trim business, also doing handyman jobs,” his son said.

Sigismondi loved both listening to Doo Wop oldies — and horsepower. An antique car collection includes classics he restored many times alongside his son John: a 1928 Model A Ford, a 1937 Packard, a 1964 Chevrolet Impala “and many others,” his son said.

A 1968 Corvette — of which he was the original owner — was a favorite, his son said, along with a 1961 Chevrolet Impala “that he meticulously restored to its original perfection, winning several awards with even an international one.”

Besides his son Paul, Sigismondi is survived by son John and daughter Catherine, both of Wading River, and five grandchildren.

A memorial visitation will be held Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Alexander Rothwell Funeral Home in Wading River.

A Mass of Christian Burial will follow on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. at Sts. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church in Manorville. Interment will follow at Calverton National Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Frank Sigismondi's name to Hope House Ministries, PO Box 358, Port Jefferson, NY 11777 or online.

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