Joseph E. Brunetti, market owner

Joseph E. Brunetti, a second generation grocer who had operated one of the village’s last family markets and was a longtime supporter of athletics programs, died Sunday, Feb. 1, 2004. He was 83 years old and the husband of Ada Bedini Brunetti.
Mr. Brunetti was born in a room over his father’s grocery store at the corner of Prospect Street and Bailey Avenue. Except for a stint in the Army, he had worked in markets from the time he was a small boy filling sacks with potatoes at his dad’s store until he sold his Brunetti’s Market in 1983 and retired.
Mr. Brunetti was born on Nov. 1, 1920, a son of Ernest and Josephine Boccolucci Brunetti. His father was a popular civic leader and a longtime merchant. His mother, the first Italian immigrant woman in Ridgefield to hold a driver’s license, helped found the Italian American Mutual Aid Society Ladies Auxiliary, which she led for 15 years.
In 1915, his father and Nazzareno Gasperini had bought Benvenuto Carboni’s Italian market on Prospect Street, and young Joseph grew up in the family business, working there after school and on weekends.
In high school, where he graduated in 1938, he was active in sports, and was a star catcher on the baseball teams coached by Cliff Holleran. “He was never possessed with great speed but had a good arm and a good bat,” his old friend Paul Baker recalled. “One of his memories is beating Mr. Holleran’s hometown high school team with a hit in the 10th inning.”
During the war he served in the U.S. Army in the South Pacific, and also continued to play ball. He was selected for the Sixth Army All-Stars in 1945, and caught for Jim Hearn who later pitched 13 seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals, New York Giants, and Philadelphia Phillies. Other members of the team included Joe Garagiola of the Cardinals.
After the war he returned to Ridgefield and married Ada Bedini in 1946. That year, he went to work for Perry’s Market on lower Main Street. In 1948, he moved across the street, going to work for the A&P, which was located in what is now Gail’s Station House restaurant. He soon became manager of the store. In 1962, when A&P built its new supermarket on Danbury Road, Mr. Brunetti decided to open his own market in the same space that had been the A&P.
Brunetti’s Market quickly became one of the busiest businesses on Main Street. “When I started out, I had one small meat locker,” Mr. Brunetti said in a 1979 interview. “Now I have one upstairs and three downstairs. I use up every square inch we have, but I still want to keep the image of the place. The success of our business has to do with the service and the high quality of the meat.”
Mr. Brunetti was known for his advice on how to prepare the meats he sold, and would often provide recipes and tips. “People got not only their meat and groceries, but also a cooking lesson,” said Irene Gray, his niece.
By the mid-1970s, take-out lunches had become a major portion of the market’s business, and it wasn’t unusual to see lines of people waiting to buy custom-made sandwiches, salads, and even barbecued chickens at lunchtime.
In 1983, Mr. Brunetti sold the business to two employees. He and his wife Ada retired to Pompano Beach and Stuart, Fla., but later moved back north to Danbury. The store closed in 1990, after its owner was unable to handle the rising costs of doing business.
Mr. Brunetti had a lifelong love of sports. After the war, he played ball and later coached the Ridgefield Merchants baseball team. He was one of the original sponsors of Ridgefield Little League, was a coach, and served as a Little League commissioner from 1955 to 1960.
An avid and skilled golfer, he had shot holes in one in both Connecticut and Florida, and had often played with many of the village business leaders and professionals. He was a member of the Ridgewood Country Club in Danbury.
For many years from his teens well into adulthood, Mr. Brunetti had been a sports reporter and columnist for The Ridgefield Press. From 1938 to 1941, he was sports editor. “I don’t have to write for the Press to earn my bread and butter because journalism is my pet hobby,” he wrote in a column in the 1950s. “Whatever I submit to my editor is only for the good of the sports events I cover.”
Mr. Brunetti was an early member of the Ridgefield Old Timers, which honored him in 1995 for both his sports prowess and his longtime support of local athletics.
Mr. Brunetti had been a member of the Marquette Council, Knights of Columbus, and the Lions Club, served on the board of the Ridgefield Boys Club, was an officer in the Veterans of Foreign Wars, had been a member of the Italian American Mutual Aid Society, and was a longtime member of the Advisory Board of Directors of the Village Bank and Trust Company. He was a volunteer at the Danbury Hospital visitors snack bar for many years.
Twenty-five years ago, when he was thinking about retirement, Mr. Brunetti recalled with pride meeting an old friend, John Mullen, on the street.
“I never thought you could be half the man your father was, but now I’ve changed my mind,” Mr. Mullen had told him.
“He saw that I’ve reached my goal,” Mr. Brunetti said, “and that I’ve become as good a man as my father was.”
Besides his wife, he is survived by nieces and nephews, including Virginia Zaleta of Danbury, Irene Gray of Wilton, Patricia Becker of Hingham, Mass., Charles Costanzo of Danbury, Thomas Costanzo of Ridgefield, and Judith Cusack of Danbury; a sister-in-law, Marian Brunetti of Boyerstown, Pa.; a cousin, Arthur Frattini of Ridgefield; and several great-nephews and great-nieces.
A memorial Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Wednesday, Feb. 11, at 10:15 a.m. in St. Mary's Church.
Funeral arrangements   are being handled by Kane Funeral Home, 438-6597.
Contributions in his memory may be made to the Ridgefield Old Timers, Box 13, Ridgefield, or the Ridgefield Boys and Girls Club, 41 Governor Street.