Locust Valley’s longtime summer visitor Dorothy Tota, dies

Dorothy Tota, who would have turned 100 on Feb. 21, was known for her humble nature, despite being a world traveler and the first female supervisor at Cartier Jewelers in Manhattan. Many remember Tota, also known as Dotty, as a “class act.”

Tota, 99, who resided at The Regency at Glen Cove died on Jan. 1.

“She was quite a woman,” said her nephew Bruce Castellano. “She was a petite woman with a very modest air to her. But she was still a powerhouse.”

Tota was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. to Benedetto and Rosa Tota on Feb. 21, 1921. She was raised in Brooklyn, but visited Locust Valley often as her parents built a summer home there in 1928.

“My grandparents were very progressive and they had four daughters,” said Castellano, who lives in Sea Cliff. “They insisted that they all went to college, they all went to school. It was back at a time when women just didn’t. My mom [Marie Castellano] went on to get her master’s degree in foreign language, French and Italian. My Aunt Dotty went on to business college and yes, she was a supervisor at Cartier Jewelers.”

Her entire professional career was spent at the Cartier Jewelers on Fifth Avenue in New York. Hired in 1945 at the age of 24 as a sales associate, she was quickly promoted to supervisor of the Fine Jewelry Department, a position she held until 1986. “It was very fascinating,” Castellano said. “Very quickly in her twenties she became a supervisor because she was very smart, very assertive and had an excellent appearance on the floor.”

Those who knew Tota say that she was modest about her success, but she would tell stories about the Cartier clientele, some of whom were celebrities, in a way that was respectful of the client as well as the merchandise they purchased.

“She not only talked about it but she got my brother [the late Denis Castellano] and me a summer job there when we were in college,” Castellano said. “In the 60s and 70s, my brother was older then I and she got us jobs as valets. You got finger printed and you got bonded and basically you carried treys of incredible jewelry around all day from one department to another.”

Castellano recalls many subway trips consisting of lively conversation with her from their homes in Brooklyn to Cartier. “Her house and mine where I grew up were a block apart,” he said. “I went on cruises with her too. She would invite my brother and me. She was very giving and very loving. She never married and never had children of her own, but my brother and me were like her children.”

Tota throughout her life traveled all through Europe, the Caribbean, Central America, South America and China, Castellano said. “She had a lot of adventures. I have pictures of her on camels, pictures of her dining outside in all kinds of foreign places, cafes all across the world.”

After retirement, Tota resided in the Locust Valley vacation home that was frequented by her entire family. Dr. Charles Valicenti of Bayville Dental grew up in the same neighborhood and remembers the family well. He would later become the family’s dentist.

“They were always very sweet and wonderful,” he said. “If the ball went in their yard, they sent it back out for us. They were just very nice people over the years we’ve known them.”

Valicenti said he gives Castellano accolades for taking care of Tota and her sisters. “Bruce was there for every single one of them,” Valicenti said. “I told him, ‘Bruce, you gave these women their integrity.’”

Tota was someone Castellano said people could confide in, along with his mother Marie, he said. “My brother passed away very young at 41 of Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” Castellano said. “She was his godmother and took his death very seriously. She moved in with my mom [in Greenvale] and she got us through all of it, she really did.”

After Marie died in 2011, Tota continued to live in her home for two or three years, Castellano said, until she decided that she did not want to live alone anymore. She moved to The Regency at Glen Cove in 2014. Castellano said he marveled at the fact that even in her 90s, Tota was still making friends. “She loved her activities and her chair yoga and her games, her boards games, her interactions and her movies,” he said.

Beth Evans, the administrator of The Regency Assisted Living in Glen Cove, said that the faculty remembers Tota as being gracious, caring and quiet, but strong. She got along well with her friends at The Regency, Evans said.

“She was very happy here and her family was very involved,” Evans said. “She enjoyed any kind of program that was educational and musical. She was very sophisticated, always looking beautiful every day with her hair done.”

And Tota always was the strength, still sharp as a tack, until the end of her remarkable life, Castellano said, just seven weeks short of her 100th birthday.

Tota is the beloved sister of Fran Genduso and the late Marie Castellano and Victoria Tota; devoted godmother to her nephew, Denis Castellano; second mother and devoted aunt to her other nephew, Bruce Castellano and his husband, Gerald Anders.