Carmen Castellano

Carmen J. Castellano, age 94, of Wayne, passed away peacefully on Wednesday, January 4, 2023 while receiving the loving care of his family.

Carmen was born in Newark, NJ, the oldest of Alex and Josephine (Cordasco) Castellano’s three children. He grew up in Newark and worked for his father as a butcher from grade school through college.

After graduating from Upsala College in Newark, Carmen taught History for a brief time before joining Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G). He worked for the utility for 37 years serving in various roles in customer operations and human resources. In 1988, he retired as a Retirement Planning Coordinator. During his years with PSE&G, Carmen also worked several part-time jobs in a variety of different industries including furniture sales, appliance sales, and even cemetery monument sales. Carmen’s greatest key to success was his ability to take his time to get to know everyone whom he worked with. He truly cared about people and always wanted the best for them.

One night at a church dance in Newark, Carmen met a lovely young woman named Mafalda DiCocco. With his big smile and natural warmth and charm, Carmen quickly captured Mafalda’s heart, and soon they were steadily dating. They quickly fell in love and married on April 24, 1949 at a Catholic church in Newark. After the wedding, they made a cold water flat in Newark their first home as husband and wife. While living there, they were blessed with their firstborn, their son Alex. Soon after, they moved to a new apartment in Belleville. This one had hot water, which made everyone a bit happier. While living there, baby Alex was joined by a new baby brother named Raymond. When that apartment started feeling too small, Carmen, Mafalda, Alex and Ray loaded the moving truck once more, this time en route to their new home across town. With each new residence came a new baby and this time was no exception as baby Diane was born. In this house in Belleville, Carmen and Mafalda raised their family from the early 1960’s until 1988 when they moved to the Packanack Woods section of Packanack Lake in Wayne. After retirement, Carmen and Mafalda started a new chapter in their lives in a retirement community in Lakewood, NJ and most recently, they had moved back to Wayne where Carmen was presently living.  

Carmen enjoyed many different amusements. As a middle-aged man, he enjoyed bowling, playing poker, and going to Atlantic City with his father and brother. Later in life, he enjoyed watching old movies on the Turner Classics channel and listening to big band music. Carmen was smart! He loved investing and talking about stocks. If you asked him the secret to his success, he would advise you to invest in companies that paid dividends and reinvest the dividends. He also believed that, no matter how good a stock looked, at the end of the day, in your heart of hearts, you had to feel confident about the company's product.

Even with all his interests, hands down, Carmen’s greatest love was for his family. He would be the first to tell you that credit for his great life went to three generations of women who always spoiled him– his mother Josephine, his wife Mafalda and his daughter Diane. He was very spry and attributed his good health and longevity to a healthy diet consisting of foods like fresh salmon and lots of fruits and vegetables (well-cooked with no salt). Carmen was rightly convinced that there was no restaurant in the world that could hold a candle to his wife’s genuine, Italian cooking. His sons and daughters and their spouses were his pride and joy, and his grandchildren were the apple of his eye. He loved spending time with all of them and was always up for a good conversation or a political debate. Mafalda was Carmen’s forever sweetheart and together they enjoyed a happy marriage that lasted 73 years.  

Three of Carmen’s greatest qualities were his contagious smile, his natural sociable nature, and his sincere sense of compassion. Carmen was one of those guys who could make friends with a perfect stranger in just a matter of minutes. His smile made him approachable and, after he’d ask you a few questions you couldn’t help but feel drawn to his warmth and friendliness. Still driving at age 94, Carmen visited the Trader Joe’s store in Wayne at least once and sometimes twice a day. He knew all the employees. He was so well-loved at Trader Joe’s that when they’d offer free samples of coffee, they’d give Carmen a regular-sized cup and sometimes even something sweet to go with it.

Carmen was the beloved husband of Mafalda (DiCocco). He was the loving father of Alex and wife Nancy Castellano and cherished grandfather of their son Mark and daughter Laura and husband Nicholas Stong and adoring great-grandfather of their son Dylan; loving father of Raymond and wife Maryellen Castellano and cherished grandfather of their son Steven Castellano; loving father of Diane and husband Alfred Ascione and cherished grandfather of their daughter Nicole and husband Christopher Diaz, and Kristen Ascione; and dear brother of Ralph Castellano and Marie Ferriero.  

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Those planning an expression of sympathy in Carmen’s name are asked to consider:

Alzheimer’s New Jersey

Attn: Development Dept.

425 Eagle Rock Avenue, #203

Roseland, NJ 07068

Please make your check payable to Alzheimer’s New Jersey.