Natalie Sarnella

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Eltingville resident Natalie Sarnella, 79, a homemaker who enjoyed cooking and was devoted to her faith and family, died Tuesday in Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze, of a stroke.

Born in Brooklyn on Christmas Day in 1932, Mrs. Sarnella relocated to South Beach in 1961. She moved to Annadale in 1968 and settled in Eltingville with her family in 1970.

Mrs. Sarnella worked as a secretary for the Brooklyn Navy Yard, but left the job in 1955 to devote herself to her family. After holding temporary jobs periodically over several years, she began work again in 1988 as a sales clerk for Macy's at the Staten Island Mall.

She was the top student in her class at Prospect Heights High School, where she graduated in 1950.

Mrs. Sarnella was consistently active with faith-based organizations, including Marriage Encounter, which programs weekends for Catholic couples; Teens Encounter Christ, which organizes spiritual weekend retreats for adolescents and young adults; Cursillo, a movement advocating deeper faith; and Prison Ministry, an organization that brings spiritual guidance to inmates at the former Arthur Kill Correctional Facility and other New York state prisons.

She frequently cooked Italian and other specialties for her family and friends. Many of the people Mrs. Sarnella encountered through her work with Catholic organizations also regularly enjoyed her cooking. Mrs. Sarnella also enjoyed family trips to Wildwood Crest, N.J.; shopping trips to New Hope, Pa., with her daughters and spending time with her grandchildren.

Mrs. Sarnella was a parishioner of Holy Child R.C. Church in Eltingville, where she also taught CCD for several years.

"She was a person who saw so much beauty in life, and she was just the most caring and compassionate person I have ever known," said her daughter, Laura D'Angelo. "She was my very best friend. She had such a kind and gentle way about her and she inspired people to enjoy life in the moment."

Mrs. Sarnella is survived by her husband of 58 years, Felice (Phil); three daughters, Phyllis Prinzi, Laura D'Angelo and Carol Quagliato; two sisters, Almera Salerno and Gloria Maguire; a brother, Anthony Patitucci, and five grandchildren.

The funeral will be Friday from the Casey-McCallum-Rice South Shore Funeral Home, Great Kills, with a mass at 10 a.m. in Holy Child Church. Burial will follow in Resurrection Cemetery, Pleasant Plains.