Rena (Marcon) Britt

LAKEVILLE — Maria Pierrina “Rena” (Marcon) Britt, who left the tiny Dolomite mountain village of Frassene with her mother, Maria Sebben, in an ox-drawn cart, bound for America to join her father, Angelo Marcon, in Lakeville, died on Sept. 9, 2017, after a brief illness. 

Rena was born in Frassene di Fonzaso, province of Belluno, Italy, on her grandmother Costantina Zucco’s 60th birthday — Sept. 17, 1920 — and arrived at Ellis Island in 1922. 

Rena was the oldest of six children of Angelo and Maria and thus was the first to attend school and learn to speak English. She liked to tell how she repeated first grade because her English was inadequate, and also remind everyone that she was a member of the last graduation class of Salisbury High School in 1938, when it was located on Lincoln City Road. 

Rena loved being the principal organist at St. Mary’s Church in Lakeville during the 1930s and 1940s. Rena became the organist once again when the Britts lived in Lakeville from 1967 to 1969.

The Marcons’ first home was in the tiny Barnum and Richardson Co. office building in what is now a wooded area near the old Davis Ore Mine. The family moved to its Lincoln City Road farmhouse in 1925 and lived there for more than 50 years. 

Rena attended Baypath College in Springfield, Mass., and afterward worked as a legal secretary in Lakeville for Campbell Becket. She loved that job and working for “Cam.” She moved to New Haven in the late 1940s with her sister Angie, where she met her husband, Jim Britt, while attending one of his acting classes. 

After a three-month courtship, Rena and Jim married in May 1952 in Lakeville, and then settled into an apartment in New Haven, where their sons Matthew and Jimmy were born. They moved several times early in their marriage to follow Jim’s work as a theatrical director, but also in order to be closer to Rena’s family in Lakeville. 

They moved to Nutley, N.J., in 1957, where Marybeth and Michael were born. In 1960, the family settled in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where Rena lived until her death. Her husband Jim died on his 54th birthday in 1979. 

After Jim died, Rena began to refine her legendary ballroom dancing skills. Rena married Roy Dupilka shortly after her 80th birthday. She and Roy enjoyed 14 years together until Roy died in 2015, at age 99. She and Roy were well known on the dancing circuit in the Poughkeepsie area.

Although Rena was clear about how she was anxious to leave Lakeville after World War II, she loved to tell everyone how her first job was at the Jigger Shop in Lakeville, now the location of Black Rabbit Bar & Grill. Well into her 90s, she could tell us the names of the owners and their children at the Jigger Shop and share amusing stories about her time working behind the counter.

Rena will be remembered as a very kind and generous person, who was always in a good mood, with a ready smile and never thinking badly about anyone. And of course she made a jello tort that was worth fighting over! 

Rena is survived by her children, Matthew, Jimmy, Marybeth and Michael; her son-in-law, Bruce Dors; her daughters-in-law, Laurie (Mueller) Britt and Cheri Sciacca; her grandchildren, Peter, Chris and Katie Britt (and her fiancé, Michael Shaheen), Heather Rena Dors and her husband, Jonathan Hoover, Brian Dors and his wife, Rachel Dors, and Nate and Jenny Britt; and her great-grandchild, Arianna Rae Hoover.

Rena was predeceased by her husbands, Jim Britt and Roy Dupilka; her grandchildren, Joshua and Matthew Britt; her parents, Maria Sebben and Angelo Marcon; her brothers, Jackie and Peter Marcon; and her sister, Tina Marcon. 

Visitation will be Thursday, Sept.14, from 4 to 8 p.m. at the William G. Miller & Son Funeral Home in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held Friday, Sept. 15, at 10 a.m. at Holy Trinity Church, 775 Main St., Poughkeepsie. ​Burial will follow in the family plot at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Salisbury. 

Memorial donations may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association, 2 Jefferson Plaza, Suite 103, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601.