Tampa Bay Coalition
 
 
Michael A. Lepore
1962 ~ 2001
 
 
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Michael A. Lepore of Lawrence Park West, Yonkers died Sept. 11 as a result of the
terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Born in Westchester Square Hospital in New York, he was the son of Jean Lepore Carlucci and the late Michael
Joseph Lepore and stepson to Anthony Carlucci. michael was the loving brother of
Leonard, Frank and Anthony. Uncle to seven nieces and four nephews; and devoted longtime partner to David O'Leary. Michael attended Sacred Heart High School in
Yonkers and Iona College in New Rochelle. At the time of his death he was working
at the World Trade Center for Marsh, Inc. He previously held positions at Donnelly
Marketing and AON. Contributions in Michael's memory can be made to the Zion Episcopal Church
Memorial Garden Endowment Fund, the spiritual home he loved so much.
 
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com
 
A Life of Homey Pleasures
 
Since Sept. 11, Michael Lepore's friends have been pruning his rosebushes, clearing wayward ivy off stone walls, planting bulbs for next spring. It is the perfect act of kindness, said Mr. Lepore's partner of 18 years, David O'Leary. Their house and garden in Yonkers had been Mr. Lepore's pride and joy and are now Mr. O'Leary's primary source of comfort.

"We used to say nothing bad could ever happen here," Mr. O'Leary said. "And it's still the most important thing. It's where I see most of Michael."

The house, designed by Edgar Tafel, Frank Lloyd Wright's apprentice, is a Usonian ranch with windows everywhere, opening onto the terraced garden. It is the ideal setting for the couple's collection of mission- style furniture, for their three cocker spaniels, for the fabulous meals that Mr. Lepore cooked for friends and family, for the wedding they were in the middle of planning for the youngest of the four Lepore brothers.

Mr. Lepore, 39, a project analyst in the technology division of Marsh & McLennan, and Mr. O'Leary, controller for the publisher Penguin Putnam, chose a life of homey pleasures. Looking back, Mr. O'Leary fixes on one glorious late August day. The house bustled with family: his parents, Mr. Lepore's mother and stepfather, Anthony Lepore and his fiancˇe. The garden was in full bloom. Michael Lepore had prepared three different entrees for dinner. "Everything was so perfect in our lives," he said. "Just so perfect."
Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on October 10, 2001
 
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Newsday.com

http://www.newsday.com/ny-liprofile12415573oct15.story

AMERICA'S ORDEAL

He Tended to His garden and To Loved Ones
By Indrani Sen
STAFF WRITER

October 15, 2001

The white eggplants Michael Lepore planted in his garden are ripe to splitting. But Lepore is not there to make his special low-fat eggplant Parmesan.

In the month since Lepore, 39, was lost in the attacks on the World Trade Center, his partner of 18 years, David O'Leary, has watched the smooth, white orbs from the windows of the pair's dream house in Bronxville.

"We were waiting for his white eggplant to be ripe enough," said O'Leary, 43. "They're still there. It's just so hard to go out and do anything with them."

Everything has been difficult for his friends and family since Lepore has been gone, O'Leary said. Lepore, a project analyst at insurance company Marsh & McLennan, took care of those he loved just as he did the flowers and vegetables in his garden.

Since Lepore's father died when he was 14, his mother and three younger brothers came to rely on him.

"He was like a brother and at the same time a father," said the youngest brother, Anthony, who is 11 years younger than Michael. "He was our leader. He led us not even knowing he was leading. You feel it now that he's not here, that he led the ship, that he was our captain."

Anthony said his brother picked him up from school, ferried him to after-school activities and helped him with homework. Michael even made it to Anthony's basketball games when their mother was working.

"He'd sit with all the mothers," Anthony recalled. "He'd just be having a grand old time."

Lepore's mother, Jean Lepore-Carlucci, said she has lost a son and a friend.

"He was like my buddy," she said. "I could talk to him about everything and anything."

As an adult, Lepore went out of his way for friends, and even for strangers. He loved connecting job-seekers with employers and was an incorrigible romantic when it came to matchmaking. He could even take credit for his mother's second marriage, having introduced her to her husband.

And around the house, O'Leary said, "he just organized everything.

"He did all the cooking - I did the cleanup," he said. "He made the grocery shopping lists - I just pushed the carts."

The arrangement worked just fine, O'Leary said. "Michael took care of everything, and it allowed me to just take care of him."

Until Sept. 11, O'Leary said, the two felt they led a "charmed and lucky life." Both successful professionals, they had just filled their modernist ranch house with the mission-style furniture they collected. Lepore loved to cook sumptuous Italian meals for friends and family, and the house was always packed on Christmas and Thanksgiving.

"And if it wasn't at his place," his mother said, "he'd do all the cooking anyway at his sister-in-law's."

O'Leary had just been promoted to controller at the publishing company Penguin Putnam, and the couple celebrated on the Friday before the World Trade Center attacks.

When O'Leary arrived to pick up Lepore from the Bronxville train station that night, he was greeted with a splendid sight. Lepore was sitting on a bench with a huge bouquet of flowers, a bottle of champagne, a bottle of O'Leary's favorite wine and two skim lattes. He was reading a book and smoking a cigar.

"To see him at the train station, just surrounded by all this stuff ..." O'Leary said. "That will always stay in my mind. It was just such a beautiful sight."

The couple was looking forward to the next phase of their lives together.

"Life was just starting to get much easier for us," O'Leary said. "We were getting established in what we were doing career-wise ... We were really starting to settle in on the good part of life."

On the morning of Sept. 11, the couple drank coffee on their patio, as usual, with their three cocker spaniels, and looked out upon Lepore's carefully tended garden, with its beds of daylilies, rose bushes, vegetable patch and rock garden.

"It was a beautiful morning," O'Leary said. "I was noticing how he just looked so wonderful."

Since that day, friends have pitched in to keep up Lepore's pride and joy - raking, digging, pruning and putting in bulbs to bloom next spring.

Copyright © 2001, Newsday, Inc.

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The Journal News.Com

http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsroom/092701/27wtclepore.html

Yonkers Man's Generosity, Love of Dogs Recalled at Funeral Service

By ERNIE GARCIA
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: Sept. 27, 2001)

DOBBS FERRY — Reading the New Testament account of Lazarus rising from death helped more than 200 mourners who crowded the Zion Episcopal Church on Cedar Street yesterday say goodbye to Michael A. Lepore of Yonkers, who disappeared in the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11.

The Rev. Richard R. McKeon Jr., who celebrated the service, described Lepore, a 10-year parishioner, as a friend and a generous man.

McKeon said the generosity of Lepore and his surviving longtime partner, David O'Leary, was sometimes overwhelming.

"When it was Michael's and David's turn (to feed a needy family), there was food for an entire month. And what food. The variety," said McKeon, praising Lepore's cooking skills.

McKeon noted that Lepore's funeral service occurred just days before Saturday's feast of the St. Michael the Archangel, who in Christian art is depicted as slaying a demonic dragon. McKeon interpreted this image and coincidence as the triumph of good over evil.

Lepore, 39, began working at the information technology section of Marsh and McLennan Companies on the 97th floor of Tower 2 in July. On Sept. 11, he arrived at work and called his mother, Jean Lepore Carlucci, as he did every morning. Since then, neither his family nor O'Leary has heard from him.

Robert Cillis came to the 167-year-old church to say goodbye to a friend he met more than 20 years ago on the Metro-North Railroad. Both men lived in Yonkers at the time and would see each other at the train station in the morning.

Cillis said he admired Lepore's love of animals.

"He loved his dogs. He would have his friends over, and they'd all bring their dogs. There would be 10 of them running around the house," said Cillis, who was visibly shaken by grief.

Cillis said that Lepore loved cocker spaniels and owned three of them. He also remembered Lepore's pain when he had to put his dog Winnie to sleep. "He was very traumatized, so he went out and rescued another dog," said Cillis, who last saw his friend at a recent dinner party Lepore organized.

Vera Loria, a longtime friend of the Lepore family, first met Lepore when he was in elementary school with Loria's children. She remembered how she was entertained by his piano playing at school assemblies.

"He was a very friendly, very giving, a nice young boy. I would have liked to have had him as my son," she said.

Loria said she had not kept in touch with Lepore after he became an adult, but recently reconnected with him when she discovered he lived next door to a friend.

"I called him, and I was going to see him. But it never happened," Loria said, adding, "If you have the chance to do something — do it right away."

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