Dominic J. Angelini, 93, World War II veteran and artist

Dominic J. Angelini, 93, who survived 65 bombing missions during World War II and went on to have a long career as a commercial artist, died at home in Glassboro on July 1.

"He had to make peace with the possibility of death when he was very young," said Mr. Angelini's daughter, Nora Hessell. "Every day after that was icing on the cake for him."

Mr. Angelini was born in Camden to Italian immigrant parents, and grew up in South Camden. His father worked as a coal stoker in a factory.

According to a biographical account provided by son-in-law Joseph Tanfani, Mr. Angelini would tell stories of a rough childhood. As an 11-year-old during the Depression, he would buy fruit at the Camden produce market, load it in a wagon, and hawk it throughout the city's neighborhoods. He never went home until every piece was gone, he remembered.

One of his first "pets" was a pig that his mother raised in the basement — and later butchered for food.

He enlisted in the Army in 1943 in World War II, and served in the Army Air Corps in Corsica, in the 57th Bomb Wing, 487th Squadron.

Assigned as a turret gunner in a B-25 bomber, Mr. Angelini flew on bombing runs targeting bridges and German supply routes in Italy. The Army continually increased the number of required missions (as remembered in the novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, who also served in the 57th Bomb Wing), and Mr. Angelini eventually flew 65 combat missions before his discharge in 1945, Tanfani, a former Inquirer reporter, wrote.

After the war, Mr. Angelini worked at New York Shipyard in Camden before enrolling in the Hussian School of Art on the GI Bill. As a designer for Price Brothers Lithograph in Bridgeton, he designed labels on cans for many products, including for Goya Foods.

In 1979, he went to work for the Franklin Mint in Philadelphia, where he designed commemorative coins and sculptures. He designed a $100 gold piece for Egypt, picturing Nefertiti, and rendered a series of Raphael paintings as coins.

He met the former Tina Trifiletti of Glassboro at a dance, and they married in 1953. They moved to Glassboro, where he built a home in the Chestnut Ridge section. He encouraged his wife to get her college degree, and in her later career as a teacher in Glassboro schools. Most of his family, including his children, lived within driving distance, something he appreciated.

"What he really cared about was his family," said son-in-law Guy Hessell. "That was first and foremost."

A lifetime lover of sports cars, Mr. Angelini bought his first Porsche in the mid-1960s. He went on to buy several classic BMWs and Porsches, meticulously restoring them for sale.

He kept busy as an artist in retirement, designing and casting porcelain plaques and carving a head of Jesus for St. Bridget's Roman Catholic Church, in Glassboro. He designed the Veterans' Memorial in Glassboro.

He was preceded in death by two brothers, Frank and Jack, and a sister, Marguerita. Surviving are his wife, a former teacher in Glassboro public schools; daughters Nora J. Hessell, Christine Tanfani, and Susan  Zitkevitz-Anderson, and four grandchildren.

Visitation is on Thursday, July 6, from 9:30 to 10:45 a.m. in St. Bridget's Roman Catholic Church, 125 Church St., Glassboro. A Funeral Mass will be at 11 a.m., with interment to follow at St. Bridget's Cemetery.

Instead of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Veterans Helping Veterans, County House Road, Sewell NJ, 08080 or to Samaritan Healthcare, samaritanhealthcarenj.org.