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Holiday Wrapping Paper Contest drawn by our young readers
Biggest police induction ever
Freeport chorale sings live
Timeline of village tree lighting
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Vol. 86 No. 50
DECEMBER 9 - 15, 2021
Trees and boats lit for the holidays By REiNE BETHaNy rbethany@liherald.com
Joe Abate/Herald
SaNTa ENjoyED PHoTo ops with village children in front of the lighted Christmas tree on the Nautical Mile last Saturday.
With last Saturday’s triple holiday lightings of Christmas trees, Hanukkah menorahs and Kwanzaa kinaras, followed by the annual Nautical Mile of Lights Boat Parade, opportunities to kick off the holiday season reached from the north to the south of the Village of Freeport. “Whose child’s birthday is close to tonight?” called Mayor Robert Kennedy into a gathering of families on the Sunrise Highway triangle between Church and Main streets. At 5
p.m., dark had fully fallen and Santa had arrived on a fire truck. Deputy Mayor Ron Ellerbe, Trustees Evette Sanchez and Chris Squeri, Police Chief Michael Smith, and Fire Department Executive Director Ray Maguire struck up conversations with parents and children. “OK,” said Kennedy when a small boy came forward, “OK, all you kids are going to help. You” — indicating the boy — “you’re going to throw the switch.” He guided the little boy’s hand to a large switch on a Continued on page 16
A graceful segue for Hungerford & Clark By REiNE BETHaNy rbethany@liherald.com
For Carmine Carpinone and his son Michael, moving to Freeport to take over Hungerford & Clark Funeral Home was rather like moving next door. They have been Long Islanders all their lives. Car mine, 58, grew up in South Ozone Park, Queens, and became a licensed funeral director in 1983. In 1998, he moved with his young family to North Massapequa, where his son Michael, now 31, learned his father’s profession. The Carpinones’ history with the mortuary business dates
back nearly a century. “We have a lot of family in the business,” Carmine said. “My brother’s in the business, my son, myself . . . My greatgrandmother used to be an embalmer” from the 1920s to the 1940s. I n C a r m i n e ’s b o y h o o d , Romanelli’s was the local funeral home, and he worked there starting at age 18. By age 20, he had graduated from the American Academy McCallister Institute of Funeral Service and earned his license. He worked in funeral homes throughout the New York metropolitan area while operating his own referral-based funeral business for
family and friends. His son Michael graduated at the top of his class from the Nassau Community College Mortuary Science Program, earned his funeral director’s license in 2011, joined the New York State Funeral Directors Association, and worked for a decade at Massapequa Funeral Home. He and his father purchased Dwyer and Vanderbilt Funeral Home in Tarrytown in 2018, but then turned its operation over to a friend and resumed their Long Island connections. “We’re from Queens-Long Island, so it’s more our territory,” Carmine said. “We have a
large community of people we know out here, from Queens to Nassau to Suffolk.” “We were friendly with the previous owners,” Kevin Molese and Jerry Frayler, Michael said. “We heard they were looking to retire, and we were able to take over the business from them.” The Carpinones recognized the Freeport community’s affec-
tion for Kevin and Jerry. Carmine said, “You should see the article we put up on Facebook, and the responses — to Kevin and Jer ry, really, because they introduced us to all this. The response to our post was really amazing, how the families loved them.” The Carpinones’ Facebook Continued on page 12