Theresa Seguino

BANGOR - Theresa Aileen “Sandy” (Burgess) Seguino, 95, died a peaceful death at home with her family at her side. The cause was metastatic cancer. She was born April 16, 1929, in Bangor, Maine, the daughter of Elias and Margaret (Cheverie) Burgess, both of Prince Edward Island.

Known as Aileen to family and Sandy to friends, she was raised on a dairy farm in Hermon with her 13 brothers and sisters. Following graduation from high school in 1947, she moved to Bangor to work in an office, one of the few occupations open to women at that time. She later worked at Viner Shoe Company sewing penny loafers, long ago when Bangor was a vibrant manufacturing center. Sandy met her husband, Stephen Seguino, at a Saturday night dance on Park Street, where these two very tall people spotted each other over the heads of the crowd. Sandy and Steve moved to Brooklyn, NY in 1950 where Sandy was absorbed into the extended family of her Neapolitan husband. It was quite a culture shock! But she adapted, learning to cook Italian food from her mother-in-law, Gaetana Seguino, who had never learned to speak English. How they communicated with each other is still a mystery.

Sandy and Steve later moved back to Bangor with their two daughters until 1968 at which time they moved to San Francisco to learn the pizza and restaurant business from Sandy’s sister-in-law. When they returned to Bangor in 1969, they opened Napoli Pizza, the first fresh-dough pizzeria in Bangor. A few years later, they opened Seguino’s Restaurant. Steve was the frontman, and Sandy was the financial wizard who made it all work – and she wasn’t averse to cruising through the kitchen to check on the chefs’ recipes to make sure they were doing things the way she had taught them.

Sandy was beloved by her entire family. Her niece and nephew, Billy Bart and Margie Frost, dubbed her a “national treasure” for her loving nature, her great sense of humor, her non-judgmental character, and her commitment to her family. She was in fact the centrifugal force of the large Burgess family for many years, bringing and keeping people together. After retirement, she and Steve cooked dinners for family and friends every Saturday night, a tradition she continued until this very year.

Prior to the recurrence of her cancer earlier this year, Sandy was a vibrant force to be reckoned with. Whenever she visited a doctor, they marveled at her youthfulness. She studied Italian, went to adult classes to learn how to use computers, got her first Smart Phone in 2023, was a consummate gardener, fiercely schooled her nieces and nephews about politics on Facebook, and became the family genealogist for the Burgess family and the Seguino family in Italy. And this farm girl loved to travel! She never imagined in her humble life growing up on a dairy farm that she would be able to travel around the world as she eventually did. After her husband passed away, her daughter Stephanie took her on many an adventure, traveling to Sicily, Paris, and her favorite—train trips out west.

One of the great experiences of her life was to meet her Italian in-laws on several trips to Italy. And twenty years ago, she travelled to Prince Edward Island, to know her relatives and learn more of her parents’ origins. Prince Edward Island became one of her favorite places to which she returned many times and developed close relationships with her cousins.

Sandy was both loving and beloved. She said, during her last days that she had had a good life, that she was grateful for her good fortune of a large and caring family, and that she had been happy. She had no regrets and was ready for the next stage. Surviving her, are her daughters, Deborah Cox and her husband, Kerry Cox and Stephanie Seguino; daughters by choice – Darylen Cote, Bonnie Brennan, and Lynn Germain; sisters, Joan Orcutt and Shirley Hurry; grandchildren, Ryan and Shawn Cox and Dante Seguino, and many, many nieces and nephews, and great nieces and nephews. In addition to her parents, she was predeceased by her husband; sisters, Anna, Geneva, Jean, and Lucille and brothers, Charlie, Joseph, Dick, Dale, Ernie, Lindy, and Bobby.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 12:00 p.m., Thursday, September 12, 2024, at St. Paul the Apostle Parish, St. Mary’s Catholic Church, 768 Ohio St, Bangor. A celebration of Sandy’s life will be held at the Family Reception Center of Brookings-Smith, 163 Center St., Bangor, immediately following the Mass. Condolences to the family may be expressed at BrookingsSmith.com.