Anthony (Tony) Charles Luciano, currently of Randolph, NJ, but who lived and worked most of his life in Livingston, NJ, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in the early morning hours of Sunday, October 20th, just a few weeks shy of his 90th birthday.
After an eight year separation, Tony has now joined his late wife, Arlene (nee Dickson), his beloved parents, and the many siblings, other relatives and dear friends who preceded him in death.
Following his birth on November 8, 1934, at Orange, NJ, to parents, Leonard and Antoinette Luciano, Tony was brought home from the hospital to Livingston where he joined his eight older siblings: Nicolina, Beatrice, Samuel, Lucille, Dolores, Theresa, Patricia and Anna. Three younger siblings arrived soon thereafter, Janet, Leonard, Jr. and Gloria. Hard work, honor, pride, integrity, loyalty to family and, despite the occasional squabble, the importance of family’s absolute and unbreakable bonds were the overriding lessons taught and learned in the Luciano household.
The family lived and farmed their Livingston homestead located North of East McClellan Avenue at the end of Keyes Road from the early 1900’s until the early 1960’s. Livingston was far different during his childhood from the present day. Tony spoke often and nostalgically of growing up in those simpler times. A favorite of his stories involved a chore that fell to him to take the family’s cow to be bred. He would relate how for some reason that cow didn’t seem to like him and was difficult for him to handle alone. He was forever grateful to his friend, Pat Bilotti, who would join him in leading the cow on the walk up the road to another Livingston farm, where they would wait while the task was completed before returning the cow home. He would tell how in a thunderstorm the chickens would flock to the corner of the coop resulting in the smothering death of many of those at the bottom, and how they would then quickly have to retrieve those that had died so that they would not be wasted and could be cleaned and cooked. Other favorite tales centered on talk of milking the goats and of how hard “Mama” and “Papa” both worked to provide for and raise their family.
As the Luciano children grew and married, and as Livingston saw more and more suburban development, the family farm began to change. The larger animals were first to go. The horse, the cow, the pigs were gone. Ultimately the land was subdivided, and a cul-de-sac was created at the top of Palmer Drive. Where once there had been extensive gardens, fruit trees and a smoke house, one-by-one eight of the twelve Luciano children built homes. On the property where they had been raised, they would go on to raise their families, and live well into their retirement years.
The year 1968 brought with it the passing of the patriarch of the family. After Leonard Sr.’s death, Antoinette continued to live in the family home with the eldest of their twelve children, Nicolina, until first Antoinette’s passing in 1985, and then Nicolina’s in 2001. Leonard, Jr. remained at home as well until his marriage in 1979 and his move to West Caldwell, where he would raise his family and where he and his wife, Sally, continue to reside. While Patricia made her home and raised her family on East McClellan Avenue, two blocks South of her parents and most of her siblings, and Janet raised her family in Mendham, they too remained anchored to their Livingston childhood home, celebrating most holidays there, and frequently visiting in one or another of their family’s Livingston homes, gathered beneath the plum tree overhanging the patio at Grandma and Grandpa’s, or on Aunt Bea’s front porch.
After moving to Livingston from Newark in her later teenage years, Arlene met and fell in love with Tony. They were both aged 20 when in 1955 they married at St. Philomena’s Roman Catholic Church on South Livingston Avenue. They continued to live in Livingston, first as a young married couple in an apartment house at Livingston Center owned by Tony’s sister, Nicky, where several others of Tony’s siblings had also taken their turns residing. From Livingston Center they moved with their first son, Lenny, born in 1956, to the apartment Tony had helped his father to build at 123 East McClellan Avenue, welcoming there their second son, Michael, in 1958. Then it was on to the home that Tony built for his family at the Palmer Drive cul-de-sac, where Tom and Tracy would later join them in 1965 and 1967.
Tony became a carpenter “extraordinaire” and while the work was certainly physically demanding, and involved long hours, he enjoyed working in that trade as a master craftsman for many years, not fully retiring until he reached age 80 moving in with Michael and Gina and their children in Randolph. Tony was only in his early 20s when he built his Livingston home at 87 Palmer Drive, an accomplishment of which he was most proud, and through which he further honed the building skills he had earlier learned by helping his father to construct the family’s commercial property on East McCellan Avenue. If Tony built it, he built it right. If two or three nails would do the trick, Tony used eight or ten screws. He worked for and enjoyed wonderful relationships with many Livingston families. He has shared longstanding ties with many, some so dear that they came to think of each other as family.
If you picture John Travolta in the movie, Grease, you would have a fairly good idea of Tony’s look during his older teenage years. He rode a motorcycle, had a pompadour and donned a black leather jacket. In his younger years, Tony enjoyed deer and pheasant hunting. Before Route 280 came to the Livingston area, the woods behind Palmer Drive were vast and deep. Target shooting tin cans in the backyard with BB and pellet guns was a favorite pastime for him to share with Lenny and Michael. He would also often lead them, along with nieces and nephews, on hikes through the woods to the remnants of an old stone foundation, telling them this is where Little Red Riding Hood lived. Later, he was greatly honored to have been asked and to walk his niece, Donna, down the aisle at her wedding.
Throughout his life, Tony greatly enjoyed watching professional boxing. For some of the time during his service in the National Guard he served as the company cook. His love of cooking re-emerged later in life when he was known to make some of the best gravy, into which would go not just meatballs, sausage and chicken, but a whole roast. Quick and easy, his English muffin “pizzas” were a tasty snack.
Autumn brought with it one of Tony’s favorite past times. He spent many happy hours visiting with the family that owned and ran Gulick’s Orchard, just over the border into Pennsylvania, where he would buy enough freshly picked apples to fill his van. It brought him great joy to then “make his rounds,” delivering bags of apples to family and friends. He’d sometimes include a new apple pie dish, and slyly wink at the recipient while telling them they were welcome to enter his apple pie baking contest. On more than one occasion in the couple of weeks just before his passing he was heard to say, “it’s apple time.” He was delighted when his granddaughter, Mary, told him recently that for her gift to him for his 90th she was taking him on an outing to the orchard for apples and then they could stop at Hot Dog Johnny’s on their way home.
His most joyful times in later life came listening to his grandchildren sing and play piano.
Admitted to Morristown Memorial Hospital Saturday evening for complications of a urinary tract infection, Tony suffered a cardiac event and died in his sleep at 1:57 A.M., Sunday, October 20, 2024.
Tony leaves to grieve his passing his four loving and beloved children, Leonard Anthony of Landing, Michael Anthony of Randolph, Thomas Anthony of Port Charlotte, and Tracy Ann of Randolph, his three daughters-in-law, Lisa, Gina and Joanne, five grandchildren, Toni Marie Luciano Manning (grandson-in-law, Pat), Justin, Jenna, Mary and Michael.
In addition to his children, grandchildren and their extended families, Tony leaves surviving him deeply loved siblings, Leonard (Junior) Luciano, Jr. and Janet Senft, his sister-in-law, Sally Luciano, brother-in-law, John Mykietyn, and Arlene’s sister, Janet Rowe, his cousin, Blanche “Sister” DeLane, as well as his many dearly loved nieces and nephews, Millie, Jeanette, Ronnie, Loretta, Sam, Linda, Donna, Eddie, Michael, Billy, Cathy, Pat (PJ), Danny, John-John, Annie, Carl, Janet, Chrissy, James, Little Lenny, Lauren, Gina, Denise, Maria, and Joey, their spouses, children and grandchildren, and their extended families.
Gone before him as well are beloved siblings Nicky, Bea Salemme, (and her husband, Larry), Sammy (and his wife Maude), Lucy Hoerrmann (and her husband Henry), Dolores (Lolly) Freeman (and her husband Johnny), Theresa Castelli (and her husband Eddie), Pat O'Brien (and her husband Bill), Anna Mykietyn, and Gloria Szumaski (and her husband John), and Janet’s late husband, brother-in-law, Adolf Senft, as well as nieces and nephews, Mary and Joey Luciano, Lenny Salemme, Henry Hoerrmann and Paulie Freeman, a great nephew, Nicholas O'Brien, and cousins Gerry and Jude DeLane.
Tony enjoyed close friendships since early childhood with Frankie Zara, Joe Bilotti and Pat Bilotti. They, their spouses, Tootsie, Frieda and Sue, and their children, Terri, Joanne, John, Donna, Joseph, MaryAnne and Bonnie, were family.
May the memories of a life well-lived, of boundless love and affection given, a man selflessly dedicated to family, and the lessons of kindness and respect for all that he taught through his steadfast and unwavering example, sustain and comfort all those grieving his loss.
Tony was blessed with a long, full life.
He was, indeed, one in a million.
Family and friends are invited to attend a four-hour Visitation on Friday, October 25, 2024 from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM at Quinn Hopping Funeral Home, 145 East Mount Pleasant Ave, Livingston, NJ 07039. A Funeral Mass will occur Saturday, October 26, 2024 at 10:00 AM at Saint Philomena Roman Catholic Church, 386 S Livingston Ave, Livingston, NJ 07039, with a Committal to follow at Gate of Heaven Cemetery & Mausoleum, 225 Ridgedale Ave, East Hanover, NJ 07936.
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