On May 24, during Memorial Day Weekend on a Saturday, Frank Mina passed away surrounded by his loving family. Born in the Bronx and raised in Morristown, New Jersey, Frank was still a Saltaire boy from the very beginning.
His grandfather, Dr. Arthur McQuillan, bought a Mike Coffey house in the young, incorporated village on Fire Island, establishing the Mina family there for multiple generations in the 1920s. His widow, Laura, recalled his love for the beach and his fascination with ferries from an early age. As a teenager, young Frank worked for the Vollbracht family at Saltaire’s general store. He attended Fordham University and worked as a deckhand for the Fire Island Ferry Company. That college job set the course for his life.
“He became very close to Elmer Patterson,” Laura Mina explained in an interview. “He appreciated Frank’s intelligence and took him under his wing. Frank was planning to go to law school after graduating, but Elmer asked him to be part of the deal when he sold the company.”
The dream team Patterson compiled was Mina, Edwin Mooney, and John Van Bree.
“None of them were rich, so Elmer made it easy for them to finance their purchase of the ferry company, and that’s how Frank got involved with the boats,” Laura explained.
Together, Mooney, Van Bree, and Mina expanded the ferry company. They upgraded the fleet, acquired neighboring ferry company franchises, and rebranded the company as Fire Island Ferries, Inc. (FIFi).
Around this time, Frank and Laura met and began dating. She was a teacher with Islip Schools, on a day trip with fellow teachers celebrating the end of the school year on Fire Island. Frank caught her eye at the terminal.
“I just thought to myself that he’s a really good-looking guy,” Laura said.
She fibbed and told Frank she was short on cash for her fare, promising to return the next day with the remaining money if he bought her a drink. He accepted, and she came back the following day with the money she owed. They got married on October 12, 1975.
They had three beautiful daughters: Laura Katherine (also known as Laura Kate), Theresa (also known as Terry), and Megan. FIFIi was a member of Interferry, an international professional organization for ferry companies, and they enjoyed traveling the world attending annual conferences hosted by Interferry. They visited other waterfront nations, including London, Hong Kong, and Washington state, among the few that are vivid in Laura’s memory.
Frank also became a personal friend of mine. Because of his interest in local history, Laura Kate suggested I reach out to him when I was working on my first book. He shared many stories as I looked through photos from his extensive collection, including one about a trip he took with his wife while attending an Interferry convention in Helsinki. They happened to run into Mel Brooks, who was a resident of Lonelyville at the time. “Hello Frank,” said Mel, as if he expected to see him in Helsinki every day.
“It was exciting with the ferry company,” Laura remembered. “And his job let me stay home and raise my girls. We had many enjoyable times. Everything went well until it didn’t.”
Frank Mina’s breakup with FIFi in the late 1980s is a matter of public record. A 2018 Newsday article notes that Frank pleaded guilty to submitting a false income entry. He was sentenced to three years’ probation and fined $50. Ed Mooney bought out Frank’s share of the ferry company, and they went their separate ways.
Laura defended her husband’s innocence during our interview. She discussed the jealousies, mistrust, and harsh words that can make any workplace toxic.
Frank often spoke with pride and fondness about his years with FIFi, but he and I left the topic of his falling out with the company alone. Still, his face would reflect a mix of sadness and regret if we got too close to it.
Always the entrepreneur, Frank went on to pursue other ventures. He formed a business partnership with the late Casey Morano of Matthew’s Seafood House, traveling to post-Cold War Russia for business deals. He also served as the general manager of a hotel in St. Croix, which his wife, Laura, called his “happy place.” Then, his health started to falter.
Frank and Laura moved to South Carolina in 2012. He donated his picture collection to the Bay Shore Historical Society. He called me shortly afterward to say that he and Ed Mooney also had lunch together at the Oconee Diner before he left. They reminisced and mended bridges. When I learned of Ed’s death in 2020, my first call was to Frank, who was grieving that loss. Last spring, a scholar tried to connect with him. I called Laura Kate to inform her, and she told me her dad was in assisted living and declining.
Along with his wife and daughters, he is survived by Laura Kate and her husband, Josh Turner’s son George; and his granddaughters, born to Terry and Nickolas Crawford, Elizabeth and Madison. Frank was also a founding board member of the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society and served on the board of Good Samaritan Hospital (now Good Samaritan University Hospital) .
He loved the bay and Fire Island. They were his favorite things,” Laura thought in her last memory of her husband. “He used to tell me that one of the best things about running the ‘bread boat’ at 6 a.m. was watching the sun rise, and the bay would be still, just like glass.”
