Report: Fiore Casale, Former Lindenhurst BOE President & WWII Vet, Dies at 87

Fiore Casale, a long-time Lindenhurst resident who served on the Lindenhurst Board of Education from 1969 to 1983 and served as BOE president for three of those years, died Monday after a lengthy battle with cancer, according to a report about his passing on Newsday.com.

Casale was 87 years old.

Superintendent Richard Nathan made note of his passing at the most recent BOE business meeting on Wednesday night.

Casale was also very involved in local little league, according to Nathan.

The long-time Lindy resident was also a World War II veteran, and shared his story with the Lindenhurst Memorial Library Veterans Historical Project.

(Click here to hear the podcast on the LML website.)

Casale once had an unusual chance meeting over tea with a principal at his granddaughter's school in Japan, according to the report.

The principal, it turned out, was a major in the Japanese air force who directed one of the worst bombing attacks Casale encountered as a soldier on the Pacific island of Morotai.

Later, Casale recalled the meeting, according to the report: "I really couldn't speak. I got a little emotional about it, and he was really emotional about it."

Until that meeting in 1989, Casale rarely talked about the war. Instead he focused his interest on Lindenhurst, where he moved in 1955.

His son, Jeff Casale, president of Suffolk Off-Track Betting Corporation, told Newsday in the report that his father served as president of the local Little League in its formative years, and was also heavily involved in the local youth football league.

"We were like a huge extended family; he was like everyone's favorite uncle," his son, a North Babylon resident, said in the report.

Casale won election in 1969 to the Lindenhurst BOE, where he served 14 years, including three as president. He also ran a losing race for Babylon Town Board in 1973.

Richard Schaffer - Suffolk Democratic chairman and the newly appointed Babylon Town supervisor now that Steve Bellone has taken his newly elected seat as Suffolk County Executive - told Newsday in the same report that Casale had a knack for putting people at ease.

"He's the kind of guy that as soon as you meet and talk to him, you feel like he's a good friend," he said.

Casale was one of 10 children, born in Erie, Pennsylvania. His family moved to New York City and they lived in a tenement in Harlem. When World War II broke out, he was drafted into the Army. When he returned, he married his childhood sweetheart, Michelina, in 1947, and they remained married until his death.

Casale worked as a printer, first in New York City and later in East Farmingdale. He retired 17 years ago.

He's also survived by his son Victor, of Tokyo, his brother, Alfred, of the Bronx, three sisters, Marie Giordano, of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, Victoria Schneyer, of Lindenhurst, and Carol Prisco, of Northport, and two granddaughters.

According to the report, a wake for Casale was held on Wednesday at Lindenhurst Funeral Home from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., and a funeral Mass was held on Thursday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church.