Patchogue businesswoman Eloise Staudinger dies

As a child, she sat on Booker T. Washington's lap while the founder of Alabama's Tuskegee Institute played checkers in Fort Salonga. As a teen, she learned to drive in a roadster, motoring about rural Long Island. As an adult, she operated a children's clothing store for more than 60 years.

To family she was the matriarch who taught her knitting skills and read books to three generations of grandchildren. And to the Village of Patchogue she was a civic conscience, promoting downtown beautification and championing the concerns of the small merchant.

Eloise Staudinger died Saturday of heart illness, her family said. She was 101.

"She was a phenomenal person for the Village of Patchogue," said Abie Siegel, owner of Blum's Swimwear & Intimate Apparel. "She was a ball of fire all her life and for all the merchants and the village."

Siegel knew Staudinger for more than 60 years and marveled at her ability to multitask. When she turned 75, he got her as a gag gift a pair of roller skates because "she was always moving."

Staudinger grew up in Northport and was raised on her grandparents' farm. As a youngster, she said Washington, living at the time in Fort Salonga, would visit her grandfather to play checkers. "I got on his lap, and he used to tell me stories," she said in a 2008 interview.

Staudinger opened a Greenport knitting store in the 1930s, when as a young mother she could not find a place to buy a hat for her daughter. She closed it during the war but opened The Colony Shop in Patchogue in 1946. Ever since it's been a high-end place for children's clothing, especially knitted blankets, hats and sweaters, as well as outfits for christenings and communions.

"Everybody remembers going there," Gail Hoag, executive director of the Greater Patchogue Chamber of Commerce said. "My mother took me there to buy my clothes, and now I'm picking out clothes there for my granddaughter."

She started the chamber's beautification committee that brought planters and hanging baskets to Main Street, and she always pushed for neat, clean streets and storefronts.

About a decade ago, she spearheaded the cleanup of a dingy, dark alley on West Main Street that has since been dedicated - and identified with a large sign - as the "Eloise Staudinger Walkway."

"Her three top priorities were family, her business and Patchogue," said granddaughter Lori Belmonte, 53, of Patchogue.

In addition to her granddaughter, Staudinger is survived by daughter Lorice Fiala of Patchogue; granddaughter Debra Belmonte of Patchogue; three great-grandchildren and five great-great grandchildren. A daughter, Judith Gueli, died four years ago.

Services are 10 a.m. Friday at The United Methodist Church of Patchogue followed by burial at Cedar Grove Cemetery, Patchogue.