Frank Sarnes

Family patriarch and longtime Staten Islander Frank William Sarnes, 85, of Tottenville, a retired FDNY lieutenant, died Thursday at home.

Born in Charleston, S.C., he also lived in Georgia, Hawaii, upstate New York, Massachusetts and Brooklyn before moving to Tottenville in 1948.

While a student at Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn, Mr. Sarnes was in the Army Enlisted Reserve Corps and worked as a clerk at the New York Post of Embarkation in Brooklyn. After graduation, he attended Stewart Technical School of Aeronautics, then entered the U.S. Army Air Forces aviation cadet program in 1945. He was stationed in Japan during the occupation in 1946.

After his military service, he worked for Nassau Smelting and Ford Motor Co., before joining the NYPD, assigned to the Island and Manhattan. In 1953, he joined the FDNY, primarily assigned to Engine Co. 151 in Tottenville. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1974 and served in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and later at Engine Co. 158 in Mariners Harbor. He retired in 1980.

Mr. Sarnes was a United Firefighters Association delegate for many years. He also was a member and longtime treasurer of the Beauvais-Hudson Post, American Legion, and a committee member and recording secretary for Boy Scout Troop 21. He belonged to the Bentley Yacht Club in Tottenville for many years.

Like many of his generation, he was also a man who could build or fix almost anything, his family said. He helped his children with home improvement projects, and did odd jobs for friends and family.

Mr. Sarnes enjoyed traveling with his wife, the former Verlene DuBois, including trips to Europe, South America and throughout the U.S.

He was a parishioner of Our Lady Help of Christians R.C. Church, Tottenville, and belonged to the Holy Name Society.

Mr. Sarnes was preceded in death by his son, Donald, in 1994; his grandson, Michael Hosemann, in 2005, and his great-great-granddaughter, Aniya Thies, in 2010.

Surviving, along with Verlene, his wife of 64 years, are his sons, Frank Jr., John, Richard, Gregory, Mark and Robert; his daughter, Mary Ann Hosemann; 30 grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and a great-great-grandchild.

The funeral will be Monday from the Bedell-Pizzo Funeral Home, Tottenville, with a mass at 10 a.m. in Our Lady Help of Christians Church. Burial will follow in Resurrection Cemetery, Pleasant Plains.

Services: Mass of Christian Burial on Monday, April 23, 2012 at Our Lady Help of Christian's R.C. Church at 10:00 AM

Visitation: Friends will be received Sunday April 22,2012 2-4 & 7-9 PM .

Cemetery: Resurrection Cemetery (Staten Island)

Location: Bedell-Pizzo Funeral Home

Church: Our Lady Help of Christians R.C.Church