Wallace Matthews Jr. of Plainview, 79

As a teenager, Wallace Matthews Jr. enlisted in the Navy during the Korean War to serve and because he liked the precision of a life in uniform; how the military taught its people to do things the right way.

The four-year tour jibed with the young Brooklyn native who had a penchant for tinkering and was a perfectionist in his own right. He was a photographer for Air Transport Squadron One in Morocco and got a chance to work on airplanes, too.

But he carried back to civilian life the philosophy of order he refined in the military, and applied it to his work managing photo labs and home life, from the neat way he folded clothes or renovated his house or his exacting Sunday ritual of cooking breakfast, his family said.

Matthews, who lived in Plainview for 50 years, died Thursday at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park of pulmonary fibrosis. He was 79.

"To me, Sunday morning and the smell of meatballs and sauce on the stove will always go together," said son Steve, of Melville, who is Newsday's thoroughbred racing handicapper.

Although he managed photo labs in New York City as a profession, Wallace Matthews' real passion was fixing up his home in Plainview, where as a self-taught carpenter he constructed built-in furniture in his basement shop.

He was born Jan. 2, 1933, in Brooklyn. He graduated from the School of Industrial Arts in 1951, where he studied photography, and later joined the Navy.

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While attending a friend's wedding in 1955, he fell in love with the former Carmela Sausa of Astoria. The couple married in March 1955.

They settled in Astoria and had three sons by 1961. Before the birth of their fourth child, in 1964, the couple moved to a home in Plainview in April 1962 -- 50 years ago -- and never left. Wife Carmela died of lung cancer in December.

"He basically rebuilt the whole house we grew up in by hand," Steve Matthews said. "He taught himself and did it by trial and error. He loved to work with his hands."

Son Wallace Matthews lives in Oyster Bay and is a former Newsday sports columnist who now works for ESPN.

His father ran Wally Matthews and Associates photography until he retired in 2005 at age 72. He listened to Frank Sinatra, whom he saw perform in the 1940s, Steve Matthews said.

He also liked to listen to Italian tenor Sergio Franchi.

He was an avid New York sports fan, and from his boyhood love of the Brooklyn Dodgers came his later affection for the Mets.

He was also a fan of the Giants and Rangers. Matthews also loved the sport of boxing, and his favorite pugilist was heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson.

In addition to his sons Wallace and Steve, Matthews is survived by another son, Christopher, of Plainview; a daughter, Deneen of East Northport; a sister, Eleanor Sperlazza of Nesconset; and eight grandchildren.

Visiting is Saturday from 7 to 9 p.m., and Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. at Vernon C. Wagner Funeral Home in Hicksville. A funeral Mass will be celebrated Monday at Our Lady of Mercy Church, Hicksville, at 10:45 a.m. Burial will follow at Calverton National Cemetery.