Dolores Picano McAfee

Dolores Picano McAfee, 87, of Farmingdale, New York, passed away on Thursday, June 14, 2018, at the Autumn Lake Healthcare facility in Norwalk, Connecticut. She had been suffering from failing health for the past several years.

Born Dolores Picano on July 31, 1930 in Jamaica, Queens, she was the second of four children of Frank and Nancy Picano. She graduated from Queens College where she earned a Masters Degree in Education. It was during one of her college socials that she met her future husband, John Knox McAfee, Jr., a mechanical and nautical engineer. They married on July 4, 1953, while he was on leave from the U.S. Merchant Marines, and afterwards they settled in Farmingdale. Dolores began teaching in Farmingdale’s elementary schools while John served in the Navy during the Korean War. Together, they had four children, and Dolores ultimately left her teaching position to raise them full time. After her children were grown, she went back to work as a special education teacher for the hearing impaired for the Board of Cooperative Educational Services of Nassau County (Nassau BOCES).

Dolores’ interests were varied and included cooking, gardening, and numerous artistic endeavors. She was an accomplished painter and ceramist, but it was her intricate mosaics that represented her finest work. As the daughter of Italian immigrants who scraped by selling fruits and vegetables from a corner store on Liberty Avenue in Queens – a business that today would be known as a bodega – Dolores developed a fierce work ethic and instilled in her children the value of hard work and a good education. She proudly viewed their success as her greatest accomplishment.

Dolores is survived by her sister, Virginia Ptucha, and brother and sister-in-law, Dennis and Jeanne Picano, as well as her four children and their spouses: Scott and Cindy McAfee of Texas, Suzanne and Craig Knutson of Connecticut, Sheryl McAfee and Robert Phelan of Florida, and Stuart and Linda McAfee of Texas. Additionally, Dolores is survived by her six grandchildren: Douglas and Stephen McAfee, Marshall and Lindsay Knutson, and Nicole and Jessica Phelan. She was predeceased by her husband, who died less than a year ago after 64 years of marriage, and her brother, Francis Picano of San Francisco.