Obit: Mary Frankola, nearly lifelong Bay Ridge resident, remembered
Mary L. Frankola was born Maria Luisa Mendez on March 29,1924 in NYC to Otilia (Jove) and Luis Mendez from Spain. She was the eldest of five sisters: Pat, Alice, Adele and Carol. Mary spent her childhood in the Upper East Side, with afternoons at the 96th Street Public Library and Central Park, and weekends at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
These early experiences formed a lifelong appreciation for literature, culture and the arts. As a teenager, Mary met Edward Frankola (1920-2004) at an ice-cream parlor in Brooklyn.
Married in 1946, they resided in Bay Ridge for nearly seven decades. Eddie served in the U.S. Army and later worked for the Department of Defense, based at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and downtown Manhattan. Mary worked as a bookkeeper at Grace Line and later at Overton & Co., while also raising a family.