Antoinette"Toni" Young

Antoinette (A.K.A. Toni) was born in Astoria, Queens, New York on June 13, 1932 to Francesco Cascella and Anna Rose La Cancelera who immigrated to America from Conversano di Bari, Italy early in the 20th century. She was the eighth of ten surviving children, and many do not know that she was a twin, however her twin did not survive birth. As of the writing of this, she is survived by her eldest sister, Lena, and two brothers, Benny and Angelo. She has many nieces and nephews, and two sons Dennis and Harry. The content of this biography is purely anecdotal from stories told over the years as best I can remember and articulate.

In the early years, Antoinette grew up during the depression, and with a large family, they all lived and worked together to help out. Her father (A.K.A. Pop) was strict and expected everybody to pitch in and help. As an adult, she admitted that she was a stubborn child, and the only person that was able to get her to do her chores properly was her older sister Carmela. During the depression, one of the things Pop did to make money was to sell hot dogs from a hot dog cart. One day as little children, she and Angelo had figured out how to get into the shed where the hotdog cart was kept. They were caught red handed stuffing themselves with hot dogs. They were in big trouble. As she grew, she was a social butterfly, and would be sent on errands to go get something at the store, and she would be gone for hours. Mom or Pop would have to send someone out to look for her. Inevitably, she had gotten distracted along the way, and was talking to or playing with someone she met.

Antoinette loved to dance. She was taking dance lessons at Fred Kelly’s (Gene Kelly’s older brother’s) dance studio where she enjoyed dancing in shows and on stage. She particularly enjoyed tap dancing, even in her 30’s and 40’s after she was married and had moved to California. She was involved in PTA variety shows where she would perform and choreograph various dance, soft shoe and tap numbers. Antoinette was outgoing and had a sparkle in her personality that was infectious. She always had a smile and would be ready at a moment’s notice to pose for a picture. As she moved into high school, she attended a vocational high school where she learned cosmetology, and she became a beautician. From a plethora of photographic evidence, she loved clothing. After she made it through school and started working, it is obvious she spent her money on clothes, hair and make-up. The combination of bubbly personality, dance, hair, make-up, clothes and tiny, petite stature always drew attention.

She, her best friend Angelina (who became her sister in-law AKA Angie) and her niece Willamina would sometimes go to Coney Island to ride the roller coasters, or go to the beach. Her cuteness and outgoing personality drew the attention of some muscle builders who naturally wanted to lift her up and pose with her for pictures. Posing for the camera in her swim suit, while being suspended in the air by muscular body builders was right up her alley.

Antoinette worked at Lady Anne Beauty Salon in Manhattan on the first floor in the Western Union building. In those days, she wore her hair piled high, always wore high heels, and was dressed immaculately. She claimed she was four foot ten inches, but we know better. That is where she met Harry Young (in about 1954) who worked on a higher floor of that building as a Draftsman. A romance sparked, and they were married in 1956. They moved around a bit in the early years within New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Dennis her oldest son was born in New York on New Year’s Eve in 1959. When Northrop Institute became a University, they moved to Santa Monica, California in 1962 where Harry took a job with Douglas Aircraft and went to school at night to get his Bachelor’s Degree. Antoinette continued to work as a beautician until she gave birth to Harry Jr. in 1964. The events surrounding that birth were difficult. Her mother passed away in January 1964, and Antoinette started hemorrhaging while at a doctor’s visit about 2 months before her due date. She was rushed to the emergency room where she had an emergency Cesarean section and she nearly bled to death requiring six pints of blood. The nurse caring for her was Doreen Bendewish who lived in the same apartment building on Penmar Street in Santa Monica. They became lifelong friends and Doreen became Harry Jr.’s Godmother. There was a brief move to Connecticut, and then in November 1965 back to Huntington Beach, California where she resided until about two and a half years ago when she was showing enough evidence of early onset Alzheimer’s that she needed some help and could not truly function on her own.

In the interim, she was a great mother, tender hearted, caring and compassionate, selfless to a fault. She volunteered in the elementary school library for a number of years while her son’s were in school. She was a novelty, and all of the kids loved her because of her tiny stature, and friendly, compassionate, helpful way. She volunteered whenever there was a PTA variety show, and couldn’t help but be on stage singing and dancing.

She was raised in the Roman Catholic Church, and was involved throughout her youth. While living in California, she did not attend regularly, but sporadically and at holidays. In 1981, however, she was seeking to restore her faith, and while studying the Word of God intently, (the book of Ephesians) she committed her heart to Christ, and was filled with the Holy Spirit. Her head knowledge about God became heart knowledge and she wanted to tell everyone about it, and she did, sometimes offending them in the process. In May of 1984, her husband Harry died suddenly of a heart attack. This shook her confidence and sent her into a dark, depressed period of her life. This event was followed in rapid succession by the death of her sister Carmela Cascella, mother-in-law Margaret Young, and brother-in-law Robert Young. Around this time, she started going to Calvary Chapel with Harry Jr. She tried to recover and started working in a retail sales and teller position at the May Company, but in 1986, her home was broken into, a violation that caused her to withdraw. Although her faith was still strong, and she did get re-baptized as a believer at pirate’s cove in 1986, she pretty well shut herself off from the outside world, except for Dennis, Harry, and her sisters Jennie and Anna. Here she existed in a depressed state for years. Harry and Dennis tried to get her into counseling, but it was not helping. She participated in Harry’s wedding to Tiffani, and she slowly was making progress toward being more social again. It wasn’t until her first grandchild, Elizabeth was born in 2001 that she really regained her will to live. The next grandchild was Harry in 2005. Dennis was married to Lori in 2006, and in 2007 along came more grandchildren with Jake in March and Catherine on Christmas Day. During this time, the happy, gregarious Toni re-emerged and restored some of her relationships. She was almost always up for Grandparent’s day in school where she was always a novelty because she was such a tiny grandma. In 2009, she started to have some memory issues, got lost once or twice, and decided she wanted to stop driving. Dennis and Harry made sure to visit and take her shopping to keep her stocked, but in spring of 2010 she was diagnosed with the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. At that time, she was spending a lot of time at Dennis’s home helping with Jake, and sometimes at Harry’s to help with Elizabeth, Harry and Catherine. It made sense for her to move in with Dennis, but she was also starting to have some gastro-intestinal issues which turned out to be colon cancer. She was in very serious condition in November 2010 when she was admitted to the hospital, and had bowel resection surgery in early December. Her recovery was amazing. She spent a little over a month doing rehabilitation in the nursing facility where she was singing, dancing, playing bingo, and generally making people happy. The last year and a few months were spectacular, and she had a great time with her sons, grand children, friends, attending the Alzheimer’s center, and going to Church at First Christian Church with Harry, Tiffani, Elizabeth, Harry, Catherine and Jake. Around March of 2012, she started to have some symptoms of stomach ache, loss of appetite and occasional vomiting. She had a colonoscopy and endoscopy performed which showed everything to be normal, along with several doctor’s visits. May 10th, 2012, she was at her oncologist’s office, and he sent her to the emergency room. She had some scans where they believed there was a small bowel blockage, but no evidence of tumors. She was in the hospital for about 2 weeks, when they put her back on food, and almost immediately she started having problems. On Memorial Day 2012 they performed bowel resection surgery and found 3 masses and an adhesion, on the outside of her small intestine and sigmoid colon. The surgery went well, however she contracted pneumonia, along with other complications that she was unable to overcome. She died on June 2nd 2012 just eleven days short of her 80th birthday. Her family and friends know she is with Jesus, but she will be greatly missed.

A funeral Service will be held on Saturday June 9, 2012 at First Christian Church, Huntington Beach at 11 a.m. with a Reception to follow.

Arrangements under the direction of Westminster Memorial Park, 14801 Beach Blvd. Westminster, California 92683. (714) 893-2421