Obituary: Laurene B. Silvani

Laurene B. Silvani died October 12, 2011 in the intensive care unit at Eastern Long Island Hospital surrounded by her family.

Born in Hicksville on February 27, 1959 to Albert Behl and Helen Lang Behl, she came to Shelter Island when she was 12. She attended Shelter Island High School, graduating in 1977 as a member of the National Honor Society. She married Randy Silvani on September 9, 1978 at Our Lady of the Isle Roman Catholic Church. She first went to work at the Bank of New York after school but left after her marriage to raise a family.

After raising her three children, she went to work cleaning houses and at Jack’s Marine. Being a people person, she later got a job with the Postal Service working for a time in the Heights and then transferring to Wainscott, where she was working at the time of her death. Her family said she loved her job and the people she met, never failing to bring a smile to their faces with a kind work or brief chat. She enjoyed knitting, crocheting, crafting and animals; she had 11 cats.

She is survived by her husband, Randy; daughter Laurene and son Kendall, all of Shelter Island, and daughter April of Palmer, Massachusetts; her sister, Donna (Behl) Clark of Shelter Island, and her sister, Florence “Cookie” Biegert of Wisconsin; and scores of nieces and nephews.

“She was a wife, mother, sister and friend to so many people,” her family said. “She touched so many lives and will be deeply missed.”

The family received friends at the Shelter Island Funeral Home where services were conducted on Friday, October 14 by Father Peter DeSanctis of Our Lady of the Isle Roman Catholic Church.