Helen Rossi

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Longtime Dongan Hills resident Helen Rossi, 96, a retired Dun & Bradstreet employee whose life was centered on her family, died Friday in Carmel Richmond Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, also Dongan Hills, where she had been a patient for a day.

Born Helen Ignarra in Newark, she grew up in Long Island City, Queens, and went to high school in Manhattan. She and Dominick Rossi moved to Flatbush, Brooklyn, when they married, and settled in Dongan Hills in 1973.

Mrs. Rossi worked for Dun & Bradstreet in environmental services for 25 years.

She loved to read, and also enjoyed cooking, baking, sewing and crocheting.

"Her family was her life. She loved being with her grandsons, Christopher and Michael. She did everything she could to help her children get through school and become successful," said her daughter, Norma Rossi. "And she was a good friend."

Mrs. Rossi was a parishioner of Holy Rosary R.C. Church, South Beach.

Dominick, her husband of 62 years, died in 2007.

Surviving are her sons, Thomas and Robert; her daughter, Norma Rossi, and two grandchildren.

The funeral will be Tuesday from the Virginia Funeral Chapel, Dongan Hills, with a Mass at 9:30 a.m. in Holy Rosary Church. Burial will follow in Calvary Cemetery, Queens.