Obituary of Agostino Castagna

They simply don't make men like you anymore. You taught us how to be men. How a man should treat a woman, lives and dies for his family, conducts business, lives by his word, looks his friends or enemies in the eye and strives to do everything to the best of his ability. Perfection was an average standard for you. You were forged in the fires of NY, born during the depression era in Bruculinu, America. You were left fatherless by the war of the Mustache Pete's before you even got your footing in life. You rose from the ashes, developing your own line of clothing that almost put Gucci out of business. You did business with NYC legends and did so with quaffed hair and an impeccable sense of style. You shook hands with Sinatra. You dominated the garment industry in the Golden Era of Brooklyn and walked through situations that would have put lesser men in the grave. All that you accomplished in business pales by comparison to the gauntlet you faced on a personal level. You buried two wives, two children and recently a grandson. You overcame the type of adversity that would deprive the strongest of men the will to live and you did so repeatedly. Your strength was not measured by financial success but by how you stared down the hardest challenges one can face. We don't just mourn the loss of you, but an entire era washed away by time. You are the last of the old-world Sicilians in our family. Our identity growing up was Sicilian. The manner in which we broke bread, worshipped, spoke, strutted and loved was all Sicilian. The days of Brooklyn and Queens are gone forever with only a few headstones to prove we were ever there. The trials and tribulations we faced will never be known to our children. As much as we strive to carry on our traditions our children are simply Americans. They will never understand the electricity of being the children of immigrants and all that was sacrificed for their blissful ignorance. We faced hardships but we did so as a tribe. You were the leader of our tribe and now you are gone. The feeling of who we were as a people is lost. The tribe is gone. With you our identity fades away. That is how much you meant to us. We love you. Funeral from the Matthew Funeral Home, Inc. 2508 Victory Boulevard, on Wednesday, departing at 9:30 am. Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at Our Lady of Pity R.C. Church at 10 am, with interment to follow in St. Charles Cemetery. Family and friends may visit on Tuesday from 4:00 to 8:00 pm.