Esther and Thomas Capone A brick at the Saranac Laboratory has been dedicated in the name of Thomas and Esther Capone by their sons, Phil and Mark Capone.

Born: April 28, 1900

Died: October 23, 1986

Married: Thomas Capone

Children: Philip, Mark

Esther Cecelia Sullivan was the youngest daughter of four children (Mary, Margaret, Esther, Wallace) born to Edward and Bridget Hartigan Sullivan in Solvay, New York. Esther left home after high school and worked as a stenographer/typist for Emmett Dobbs in Washington, D.C. Emmett was diagnosed with TB about the time he and Esther were married. They returned to Emmett's home in the Texas Panhandle near Amarillo. Emmett died and Esther returned home to Solvay when she was also diagnosed with TB and entered the Ray Brook Sanatorium in the late 1920s.

Tom and Esther met at the Ray Brook San and when discharged in the late 1920s they lived in Saranac Lake. Their first son, Phillip, was born in 1930 and Mark was born in 1934. Thomas Capone worked in Saranac Lake in the grocery business, at Passino's Grocery on Broadway (near the firehouse) and was manager of the A&P, also on Broadway at that time. Esther was a homemaker and worked part-time as a typist and stenographer for people in the Saranac Lake area, at the Santanoni apartments on Church Street. She also worked part-time for Russian Ambassador Davies at the Post Camp, Reverend Gurley, a well-liked Presbytarian minister, and the Bernstein family on Riverside Drive. In 1941, they purchased a retail liquor store in Syracuse. Esther and the boys left Saranac Lake at the end of the school semester in 1942 to join Tom in Syracuse.

Phillip, who worked as a forester for DEC, and his wife Barbara returned to Saranac Lake in 1954 for about a year, then moved to Warrensburg New York and returned to Saranac Lake/Ray Brook in 1962. They raised five children in Saranac Lake. Phillip and Barbara still reside in Ray Brook.

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