Eleanor (Romaniello) Kachites

November 20,1921-August 24, 2022

Eleanor “Ellie” (Romaniello) Kachites, after 100 years’ journey running the good race, was called into God’s loving embrace on Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at home surrounded by her loving family. She was peaceful, humble, and considerate to the end.

The youngest in a family of 13 children, Ellie was born November 20, 1921 in Copiague, NY to Theresa (Mazzotti), a homemaker, and Gerardo Romaniello, a steamfitter on the Long Island Railway. Growing up during the depression, food and warm blankets were sometimes scarce. Throughout her many continuing hardships in life, Ellie remained filled with hope, modesty, and care for others. She left school at 9th grade to help support her family by working in a sewing factory. She later worked from home as a much-beloved seamstress, sewing or altering many dresses for brides, bridesmaids and flower girls. Her door was always open, the coffee pot always on, and she was always welcoming to her many adoring customers, neighbors, and friends, (from whom she received innumerable Christmas cards every year).  For the last 19 years of her life, she lived with her daughter Donna and family in Amherst MA, where she was a constant source of unconditional love, good spirits, and laughter to the entire household, as well as to friends new and old, ranging in age from 20s to 90s.

She was very proud to have reached 100 years old this past November.  When she needed some help, or asked for a special treat, she would sometimes say, “I can have that because I’m a hundred!”  When she would say something mysteriously wise, or when she was struggling with pain, she would sometimes say “When you are 100, then you’ll understand.”

Ellie is survived by her daughters Carol Meittinis, Janice Stevenson, and Donna Kachites McCallum, as well as her son-in-law, Andrew McCallum, her grandchildren Theo and Elle McCallum, Nicky (and Stephanie) and Jimmy Meittinis, and her great-grandchildren, Mathew and Nicholas Meittinis, Natalie and Tyler McGowan and her grand-son-in-law Steven McGowan, and also numerous nieces, nephews and friends who loved her dearly and with whom she stayed in touch all her life. Those by whom Ellie is predeceased include her husband Dimitrios “Jimmy” Kachites, her granddaughter Dina (Meittinis) McGown, her sons-in-law Louis Meittinis and Wally Stevenson, and all twelve of her dear sisters and brothers.

Visitation will be held at D’Andrea Bros. Funeral Home at 99 Oak St, Copiague, NY on Friday October 14, 2022 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Funeral mass will be held on Saturday, October 15, 2022 at 9:00 a.m. at Our Lady of the Assumption Church, 1 Molloy Street, Copiague, NY, followed by burial at Saint Charles Cemetery, 2015 Wellwood Avenue, Farmingdale, NY.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Experience Camps, https://experiencecamps.org, a national, no-cost program for grieving children who have experienced the death of a parent, sibling or primary caregiver, or to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, https://www.mskcc.org.