In loving memory of Lillian Caparell

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June 1951 we had just moved to Wantagh in the T section. Edie Diener lived across the street and Lillian lived up the street. In September we started the 3rd grade at the Wantagh Annex. We only had 3 classrooms and Lillian sat next to me. I had a terrible crush. Doug Castoldi was also in the class and he lived the next street over. We finished the 3rd and 4th grade at the annex. Lillian was smart and I was a dummy. Then in 5th grade we went to East Broadway and I stabbed Lillian in the butt with a pencil and she punched me in the nose making it bleed, ouch. Her mother read me the riot act not so gently explaining I could have given her lead poisoning. Who knew!!

Division Ave and Salk followed and then on to LMHS. My mother and Lillian's were friends and my mother was always complaining to hers about the bad influences I was hanging around with, (you know who you are) and Lillian would delight in telling me so everyday at the bus stop would hear. She knew it was I who was the bad influence but no mother would think her darling boy was the one.

I didn't know Lillian as an adult but my memories of our childhood are vivid and will always be cherished.

God bless you Lillian
From Jerry Murphy

I would just like to add to this tribute by saying that my most vivid memory of Lillian was not from high school but from her adult years. It was maybe around 2004 when Gino Lynch's home in California got hit by a devastating mud slide. She spent the better part of a day on the phone long distance giving hell to the highway department that refused to clear Gino's mud that had been pushed to the road by rented bulldozers. They kept telling her it was HIS responsibility to dispose of that mud. In the end she wore them out and most of it was hauled away. They really had no choice. The road was blocked and other vehicles couldn't get through. Her persistence paid off. May she rest in peace. 

Marcy