Caroline Otterbeck

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Cherished as a devoted, hardworking mother and grandmother Caroline Otterbeck, 87, died Sunday in Carmel Richmond Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, Dongan Hills, where she had resided for over two years.

Born Caroline DiVernieri in Lower Manhattan, her family moved to Staten Island when she was a young child. She grew up in Concord, where her family owned and operated the Crosstown Bar and Grill on Clove Road in the 1930s and 1940s. When the family relocated to a home on Fingerboard Road in Arrochar, she managed the seven rental cottages on the large property, taking care of everything. When that property was sold in the 1980s, she moved to Annadale, and lived there for two decades.

“She was a family person — she lived for her family,” said her son, Harold, Jr. “It was all about her children and her grandchildren.”

When her husband of 20 years, Harold, a NYPD lieutenant, died in 1969, “all she did was raise me and my younger brother, and also take care of her mother, Josephine. She gave up everything for us.”

Mrs. Otterbeck enlisted the help of her two teenaged sons to maintain the rental cottages. “We painted, fixed fences — she made us into masons, carpenters, and plumbers,” Harold, Jr. recalled.

She loved flowers and gardening. “She taught me about rock gardens when we lived on Fingerboard Road,” her son added. “My green thumb comes from my mother.”

She was a parishioner at Holy Rosary R.C. Church, South Beach

In addition to her son, Harold, Jr., she is survived by another son, Philip; seven grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter.

The funeral mass is Thursday at 10:30 a.m. in Holy Rosary Church. Burial will follow in St. Mary’s Cemetery, Grasmere. Arrangements are being handled by the Casey Funeral Home, Castleton Corners.