Mineola Mayor Pereira’s father, Avelino, dies at 84

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Mineola Mayor Pereira’s father, Avelino, dies at 84
Mineola Mayor Paul Pereira, right, and his father, Avelino, left. (Photo courtesy of Paul Pereira)

Mineola Mayor Paul Pereira’s father, Avelino Pereira, died on Feb. 15 in Portugal, where he had been living for many years. He was 84 years old. 

Paul Pereira, who has been in Portugal for the week, shared with Blank Slate Media the story of his father’s life of hard work and perseverance. 

Avelino Pereira was born into poverty in the small town of Veiros, Portugal, on Jan. 21, 1939. Despite the challenges of his early life, his father was determined to make the most of the opportunities that came his way, his son said.

“After he completed the fourth grade he went to work, like so many others,  in construction, specifically as a painter,” Paul Pereira said. “He lost both of his parents, presumably to cancer, within months of each other when he was just 11 years old.”

Avelino Pereira and his nine siblings were separated and he was raised by one of his aunts. At the age of 18, he was drafted into the Portuguese military and served for nearly three years, mostly in Portugal’s colonial war in Africa, specifically in Angola.

Upon returning home in 1963, Avelino Pereira married months later and went on to have four children. Times were tough in Portugal under António de Oliveira Salazar, the Portuguese prime minister from 1932 to 1968, and Avelino Pereira followed his older brother and emigrated to the United States in 1974, leaving his family behind. 

Paul Pereira, his mother and three siblings were able to join his father in Mineola three years later, living in a two-bedroom apartment above a storefront on Main Street. 

“Both my father and my mother worked at Great Neck Saw Manufacturers on East 2nd Street in Mineola, my father for over 25 years,” the mayor said. 

Avelino Pereira and his wife became naturalized United States citizens in the late 1990s and retired in August 2001, moving back to Portugal permanently. The mayor’s parents would visit Mineola often for several months at a time but had to stop their visits when his father’s eyesight deteriorated as a result of diabetes. Avelino Pereira’s last visit to the United States was for the birth of the last of his seven grandchildren in December 2012, the mayor said.

Paul Pereira, who was elected mayor last year and also teaches history in the Mineola school district, said his father was “exceedingly proud” of his son’s leadership role in the village that gave his family so many opportunities. 

“I am glad and comforted by the fact that he got to see the ‘American Dream’ realized through all four of his sons,” Paul Pereira said. “He was born poor but died rich.”

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