Dennis Scauso, 46, of Dix Hills, was with the New York City Fire Department’s Hazardous Materials Company No. 1 in Maspeth. He died in the south tower. Only his helmet was recovered.
Dennis Scauso was the third of Rose and Salvatore Scauso’s four children and the only son. He kept in close touch, often stopping by for lunch, or calling to check on them.
In the days after 9/11, when his parents had not heard from him, they knew they were hoping for a miracle. If he’d survived, “he definitely would have called,” said Rose, 84, a full-time secretary for United Cerebral Palsy. “A few months later they finally found his helmet,” she said. “It was very painful, especially the condition it was in. It was completely crushed.”
Working keeps her busy, which helps her cope. “It’s not been easy, you just don’t ever forget,” she said. She likes going to the ceremonies at Ground Zero. “I find it very consoling to be with people who feel like I feel,” she said.
Said one of his daughters, Gabrielle Scauso: “My dad was murdered. It’s not like you wake up one day and suddenly that void is filled … You don’t move on: you have to go to sleep, wake up and go on living.” Dennis Scauso was the kind of boy next door who wouldn’t give his pesky neighbor girl the time of day – that is until 20 years later when he married her.
A change in careers for Scauso and a family crisis for his future wife, Janlyn, reunited the two in their childhood Commack neighborhood. It was then that Scauso fell in love with the same little girl who used to spy on him as he tossed the football with her older brothers in the backyard or fixed up cars in his driveway. “I had a crush on him,” said Janlyn Scauso, 39. “But I just never thought it was returned until we were older.”
He flew for Ozark Airlines and TWA, but it was difficult to find steady work. So he moved around the country piloting chartered flights where he could. Eventually, he returned to Long Island to his parents’ home in Commack while he became a firefighter. It was then that Janlyn’s father fell ill. She returned home to tend to her father for several months. Scauso noticed her Monte Carlo SS had been damaged in an accident. He decided he would work on it for free. He fixed the car and married her.
His wife remembers a husband who loved his four children, Darcie, 13, Donny, 12, Gabrielle, 6, and Juliette, 4. He loved to fix things, and loved to have as many people as possible around the dinner table.
His wife last spoke to her husband on Sept. 11, before the buildings collapsed. “I said to him like I do every time, ‘You’re my everything, the air I breathe and the reason I wake up in the morning.’ He said, ‘Right back at ya.’ “And that was the last time I talked to him.”