.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Longtime Dongan Hills resident Emanuel Abela, 80, the loving patriarch of three generations and a retired city detective, died yesterday in Staten Island University Hospital, in Ocean Breeze.
Born and raised in Manhattan, he moved to Dongan Hills in 1969.
Mr. Abela served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, attaining the rank of corporal. He was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
He had a 20-year career in the New York Police Department, retiring as a detective in the Housing division in 1979.
Mr. Abela was a member of the Fraternal Order of Police.
He loved boating and fishing, and belonged to the Nichols Marina.
Mr. Abela was a longtime parishioner at St. Ann's R.C. Church, Dongan Hills.
Surviving are his wife of 58 years, the former Josephine Giordano; his son, Joseph; his daughter, Anna Marie Altadonna; his sister, Rose Ann Carone; seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
The funeral will be tomorrow from the Virginia Funeral Chapel, Dongan Hills, with a mass at 11 a.m. in St. Ann's Church. Burial will follow in Resurrection Cemetery, Pleasant Plains.