GUILDERLAND — To town residents, Jeannette E. Mastrianni was co-owner with her husband of Mastrianni’s Dutch Mill Nursery on Carman Road and later of the Dutch Mill Antique Shop and Flea Market on the same site. To her daughter, Sharon M. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza, who served as her caregiver for many years, “She was my best friend.”

Mrs. Mastrianni “entered into eternal life in God’s hands on October 23, 2016 at her home in the care of her loving daughter Sharon,” her family wrote in a tribute. She was 95.

She was born on July 10, 1921 in Schenectady to Johann Filar and Wladislawa (née Michnik) Filar and was raised in the city until her teenage years. Mrs. Mastrianni’s parents came to the United States as young newlyweds, first settling in Schenectady, where their first names were Americanized to John and Ida.

Mrs. Mastrianni’s father, originally a meat butcher, was quite enterprising, Mrs. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza said, and became a grocer, having the first “Step In and Shop” traveling grocery store in the area. He owned several refrigerated trucks that would travel from house to house selling his meat and groceries.

When Mrs. Mastrianni was a teenager, her family moved to a farmhouse with over 130 acres, that stretched from Lone Pine Road to Spawn Road. There they raised animals and grew vegetables, selling them at their stand on the corner of Lone Pine Road, which is now a gas station.

Frederick Mastrianni, the man who would later become her husband, bought several acres of land at the corner of Lone Pine Road and, together with his brother Joe, started a tree nursery and landscaping business there called the Mastrianni Brothers Nursery, Mrs. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza said. Mrs. Mastrianni, who was a young woman at the time, would often walk that way to watch the “handsome young men at work, and took a shining to my dad,” said Mrs. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza. They soon started a courtship and were married while Fred Mastrianni was on leave from military duty in World War II; he was in the United States Army, with the military police.

“And the love story lasted,” said Mrs. Mastrianni’s daughter. “It continued through 66 years of marriage. I’d like to believe that they’re together again, and the love story continues.”

The Mastriannis co-owned and ran the Dutch Mill Nursery and Garden Center on Carman Road for 30 years, from 1940 to 1970. While Fred Mastrianni was busy with the landscape division, his wife headed up the retail end and indoor plant and flower division, “always greeting customers with a wonderful smile,” said her daughter, who wrote in her tribute, “Jeannette amazed family and friends with her knowledge of plants and was able to recite the Latin and common plant names and care requirements whenever questioned.”

She had a “wonderful green thumb, and loved plants and flowers,” said her daughter. “She could grow anything and make it flourish. Our house was always filled with greenery and flowers that my mom would cut from her gardens. While my father enhanced our property with landscaping, my mother created beautiful perennial gardens that remain today.”

During the nursery years, her parents participated in the first Home Show at the Albany Armory, Mrs. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza said, where they displayed plants and trees showcasing their landscaping business. The show’s directors also asked them to create a landscape for a Dutch windmill that was being featured at the event. They did a beautiful job and won a prize for it, said Mrs. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza. Her father took an interest in the windmill and purchased it from the Home Show and began to display it at the nursery, where it became a landmark, causing the Mastriannis to change the name of the business from Mastrianni’s Garden Center and Tree Nursery to Mastrianni’s Dutch Mill Nursery.

After the Mastriannis retired from the nursery business, the windmill was moved to the family home, where it “graced our front yard for years,” said Mrs. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza.

Jeannette and Fred Mastrianni established the Dutch Mill Antique and Flea Market at their property, which ran from 1971 to 1984. “My parents always treasured and loved antiques,” Mrs. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza said. “The original nursery store became the antique shop, and the huge outdoor flea markets were held in our fields every weekend in the spring, summer, and fall.”

People still call, Mrs. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza said, to ask about the flea markets, and are disappointed to find that they have long since ended.

The Mastriannis donated their landmark Dutch windmill in 1992 to the town of Rotterdam, and it has since been “displayed proudly in several locations,” said Mrs. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza, including the entrance to the nature trail off Campbell Road.

An avid lover of music, Mrs. Mastrianni was quite proficient on the piano and played beautifully, favoring classical music. She also had a collection of player pianos and loved to entertain with her vast inventory of player-piano rolls, which her daughter estimates once numbered more than 6,000.

“I think we still have five thousand,” said Mrs. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza, who has inherited her mother’s love of the player piano. Mrs. Mastrianni was “very musical,” her daughter said, and also played the organ and accordion.

“She was also enterprising, like my grandfather, and, while running the nursery with my dad, she also rented band instruments to students of the local schools,” Mrs. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza said of her mother. “She ran that business out of our home garage and loved working with the kids, hoping that her love of music would extend to them,” she continued.

Mrs. Mastrianni loved all animals and adored the many pets with whom she shared her home over the years, most recently her miniature poodle, Pixie, and family cat Jake, said her daughter. She enjoyed watching the many different kinds of wildlife and birds that are abundant on the property, Mrs. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza said.

In a tribute, her daughter described Mrs. Mastrianni as a “beautiful, loving, intelligent, exceptional woman who loved her family dearly.”

Mrs. Mastrianni was “so lovely to be around, so gracious and caring,” said her daughter. “I pictured her going on past 100, but to have her for 95 years, I guess, is wonderful.”

The day before her death, Mrs. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza brought her mother home from the hospital to enter in-home hospice.

“She knew she was home, and that was what she wanted,” her daughter said.

****

Jeannette E. Mastrianni’s husband of 66 years, Frederick Mastrianni, died in 2009.

She is survived by her children, Vincent J. Mastrianni Sr. and his wife, Gaye, of Guilderland; Janet M. MacCollam and her husband, Kevin, of Clifton Park; and Sharon M. Mastrianni-Kumiszcza and her husband, Joseph, of Cumberland, Maine. Also surviving are four grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and several nieces and nephews.

Mrs. Mastrianni is “greatly loved and missed by her family and will remain forever in their hearts,” the family wrote in a tribute.

A funeral service was held privately at the DeMarco-Stone Funeral Home in Guilderland. Mourners my leave condolences online at demarcostonefuneralhome.com.

— By Elizabeth Floyd Mair