Domenick Stanich

Domenick (Stagni) Stanich

“You are like an ocean: quietly ebbing and flowing to the rhythm of life, but wildly expansive and profoundly powerful. Your quietness is your strength...”-Aletheia Luna

August 18, 1923 - July 8, 2019 (age 95)

Domenick Stanich, 95, of Beach Haven, N.J. passed away peacefully on July 8th.
He was preceded in death last December by his wife of sixty three years, Anna. He is survived by his daughters ..... Susan (Salvatore) and Nadine (Lilly), six grandchildren, six great grandchildren, (seventh bun in the oven ) his sister Maria (of Croatia) and his brother Antonio (of Sydney, Australia) as well as many nieces, nephews and extended family. He had three brothers that predeceased him - Drago, Srecko and Salvatore.

Born in Cres, Croatia, an island on the Adriatic Sea, he served as a merchant marine during WWII. In 1955, he became both a US citizen and a husband. He earned an architectural drafting certificate while learning the English language and worked for the New York City District Council of Carpenters for most of his career.

Besides helping to build NYC in the 50’s and 60’s, he built our family homes in Montvale and Long Beach Island, N.J. on weekends. He toted us to church every Sunday morning, getting us all back to work as soon as mass was over. He had the biggest vegetable garden in the neighborhood, produced homemade wine and grappa in his custom made wine cellar... took cars apart and put them back together with leftover pieces. He had a male German shepherd named Lancer that I think he may have loved more than us girls. He opened his life and home to my maternal grandmother after just a few months of marriage and she lived with us until she passed away at the age of eighty nine. He loved the ocean. He spent countless hours in his fishing boat. Often his nets were empty but to borrow this quote "If I fished only to capture fish, my fishing trips would have ended long ago."

He was stern. He was strong. He was talented. He was to be respected. He was our dad.

He was papa to our children. His face would light up when the grandkids came around. Two granddaughters and four grandsons proper - life sprang anew through their lives. He cheered them on and supported them in their endeavors. He lived long enough to see three of them married having children of their own, making him a great grandpa, one even being named Dominic after him. Another, a great granddaughter, born this past May - was named Anna ... after his beloved.

I am not skilled enough a writer, nor enlightened enough a daughter to do justice to who this man was ... and is. Dates, times and places read like a bullet journal. But life flows ... it wanes like the tide.
We will stand on Liberty Avenues shores ....
between it’s jetties ... and call you to mind dad.

živjeli.... Bog je dobar. God is good.

Visiting hours will take place on Monday, July 22, 2019, 10am until his funeral service at 11am from Maxwell-Tobie Funeral Home, 573 Mill Creek Road, Manahawkin, NJ, 08050.

Interment will follow at St. Mary's Cemetery, Beachview Avenue, Manahawkin.