Don Puza, longtime Southampton industry owner, dies at 82

SOUTHAMPTON — A person yr during the holiday getaway season, Don Puza, owner of Puza’s Pure Foodstuff Sector, learned that a client had no relatives associates to support her set up Xmas decorations. Puza right away stepped up to enable, said Vicky Puza-Allen, his daughter.

“My father arrived residence and claimed, ‘We’re all likely about to her household and placing her Xmas decorations up,” Puza-Allen recalled.

This conduct was usual for Puza, who ran the grocery shop on Faculty Highway for decades.

“Somebody would connect with and couldn’t appear to the retail store, he would fall groceries off for them,” Puza-Allen extra. “There was a veteran in the automobile who couldn’t get out of his vehicle simply because of his harm, he (Puza) would store in the store and carry it out for him.”

Puza, a longtime Southampton resident, died Friday at 82 after a small sickness with cancer.

On Monday, household and buddies remembered Puza for his generosity and considerably-reaching help in the spot. Puza’s motto was “Family initial,” Puza-Allen mentioned, but her father’s supplying mother nature prolonged to shoppers and the bordering local community.

Puza’s son, Josh Puza of Chesterfield, stated Don Puza was not just his father but his finest good friend.

“He was the most selfless, caring, compassionate person,” Puza said. “It was usually about most people else in the family and local community. He came previous.”

Other benefactors of Puza’s generosity have been the “hundreds of area organizations” he donated to, Puza-Allen claimed.

A favored between these organizations was the Southampton Youth Affiliation, a nonprofit that offers sporting activities and other recreational activities to area youth exterior of college. Puza would sponsor athletics groups and also contributed to scholarship funds for regional high faculty seniors.

Puza was a former specific police officer with the Southampton Law enforcement Department, and ongoing to guidance the town’s law enforcement and fireplace departments in the many years subsequent his departure, Puza-Allen said.

In 1999, Southampton named him Citizen of the 12 months.

Dondi Owens, Puza’s son-in-regulation, reported that his father-in-law embodied the term “giver.”

“That’s him in a nutshell,” Owens stated. “Just the most giving, unselfish person you could know. He was a huge, and he’s likely to be skipped enormously for a long, lengthy time.”

Puza is survived by his spouse of 55 yrs, Theresa Puza his 4 small children seven grandchildren and several other spouse and children members and pals.

A Southampton fixture

Don Puza’s father opened Pure Food stuff Sector on Primary Road in Holyoke in 1947. The retailer moved to Westfield in 1949, then its recent place at 31 University Highway in 1964. Puza, who was born in Holyoke and grew up in Westfield, moved to Southampton with the store that yr.

These who worked for Puza ended up also welcomed into the loved ones, claimed Nicole Buzzee, a Westhampton resident who worked for Puza for just over seven decades.

“They ended up just so loving and caring, and actually did all the things and anything for other people and never expecting nearly anything again,” Buzzee claimed of the Puzas.

“You really do not obtain that everywhere in anyone, definitely,” she additional.

Puza’s electricity was infectious, Buzzee claimed, noting that “no make a difference the day that you had, when you noticed him, you would have a good working day.”

Josh Puza famous that his father also strived to assistance area farmers via his small business, recalling, “he was constantly trying to purchase from the community men.”

Puza served with the U.S. Air Countrywide Guard in the 1960s, and will be buried at the Massachusetts Veterans Memorial Ceremony in Agawam on Wednesday. A funeral Mass will be held beforehand at 12:15 p.m. at Girl of the Valley Parish in Easthampton.

Jacquelyn Voghel can be achieved at [email protected].