Joseph Anthony Celano, music-shop owner, former Hatboro mayor

Joseph Anthony Celano, 96, a music-shop owner who, as mayor of Hatboro from 1981 to 2005, married more than 2,000 couples, died Tuesday, Oct. 30, at Luther Woods Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Hatboro.

When Mr. Celano was elected mayor for the first time, he didn't belong to a political party, although he would become a Republican. After operating Hatboro Music Shop for 36 years, however, he knew everybody, he later told The Inquirer. Before the election, cars and vans drove around for weeks with unsolicited, homemade "Go With the Flow, Vote for Joe" signs. He won by a 5-1 ratio.

It took four terms before he issued a veto of a Borough Council ordinance, which was overridden. He tried to block the raising of parking fines from $2 to $5. Hatboro's downtown shopping center was having enough problems fighting shopping malls, he told The Inquirer in 1997.

To minimize the impact on his customers, he often paid their tickets himself, he said.

Mr. Celano operated the shop with his wife, Arlene. Both music lovers, they sold sheet music, records, cassettes, and then CDs, and briefly sold musical instruments, said their son, Tony. She played the French horn, and he was an opera aficionado, their son said.

Mr. Celano and his wife met while both served at Willow Grove Naval Air Base. They married in 1944.

In 1945, they opened the music shop near the base, on York Road in Hatboro. Three years later, they moved from an apartment to a house in Hatboro. For 57 years, until the shop closed in 2002, he walked to work rain or shine, his son said. At first, he and his wife never took a vacation. When their son was able to mind the store, they enjoyed spending time at their summer home in Beach Haven, N.J.

As mayor, Mr. Celano often performed as many as six weddings a weekend. "In a 20-minute service, he draws from the Greeks, the Irish, the Arabs, the Bible, and the bards," The Inquirer reported in 1997. " 'I steal a little here, I borrowed a little there, I add a little of my own,' " he said. " 'If they laugh at the jokes, I give them more jokes. If they say 'Amen' after the prayers, I give them more prayers.' "

The Inquirer reported that Mr. Celano's own marriage, at least within the confines of the music store, was a series of one-liners à la George Burns and Gracie Allen. "I got lucky," he told The Inquirer. "I found myself a girl with a great sense of humor." His wife died in 2008.

Mr. Celano, who was known as "Mayor Joe," served on the Hatboro Police Commission, chaired the board of the Hatboro YMCA, and was past president of the Montgomery County Mayors Association.

In 1960, he was honored by the Hatboro Lions Club for heroism after he saved three young girls from a burning car on York Road.

As a distinguished Hatboro citizen, he rode in horse carriages or fire trucks or convertibles in Hatboro Christmas parades from 1981 to 2010.

A native of New York City, Mr. Celano left home with a friend at 15 and went to work in a laundry on Cape Cod for 25 cents an hour. Later, he became a welder at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Mass.

During World War II, he was a chief petty officer and radio technician at a naval air station in Rhode Island. He was transferred to Willow Grove when he became part of a team installing radar on planes that could detect German submarines, his son said.

In addition to his son, Mr. Celano is survived by a daughter, Julie; four grandchildren; and two great-grandsons. Another daughter, Angela Wilson, died in 2006.

Friends may call from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 7, and from 10 a.m., followed by a funeral at 11, Thursday, Nov. 8, at Schneider Funeral Home, 431 N. York Rd., Hatboro. Burial with military honors will be in Hatboro Cemetery.

Donations may be sent to Millbrook Society, Box 506, Hatboro, Pa. 19030.