Keith Owen D’Aguilar­—

a former custodian in

Copiague School District and longtime Amityville resident—died in April at the age of 82 in San Jose, California after a short battle with leukemia.

Keith, or K.O. as he was known by friends, lived in Amityville from 1956 to 1999 on Beta Drive. After they both retired, he and his wife of 59 years, Sheila, moved to California to be with his children and their families.

For 30 years, he served as a mail handler for the Long Island City Post Office, but he also picked up other work. During the ’70s, he served the Copiague School District doing maintenance and custodial work. He also detailed Cadillacs and even worked in a concession stand selling pastries and coffee for a short time.

He served in the U.S. Army for three years in World War II.

After retiring, he volunteered with the Helping Hands Organization, transporting goods to food banks and bringing food to the disenfranchised in Wyandanch and other towns in Suffolk.

“He had a lot of jobs,” said his daughter Carmen D’Aguilar. “He was a hustler and learned a lot of things and applied them to his life.”

Neighbors knew him as the man with the green thumb. “He could grow anything,” Carmen said. “He would be walking along the street, see something broken off a plant and bring it home. We had flowering plants, cherry and peach trees, a vegetable garden and house plants. People would come by and tell us that our yard looked like a park.”

“He could cook too,” she said. “He would bake pies. And we would stomp grapes to make wine. In the summer, we picked tomatoes for a salad at dinner.”

His daughters just thought of him as “dad,” but to his cousins and other family, “he was a legend,” Carmen said. “He was a strong person who liked to look good and smell good. He had a sense of humor and they respected him very much.”

He is survived by his wife Sheila, his daughters who live in California Sharon D’Aguilar-Todd, Carmen D’Aguilar and Maria Woods and her husband Roderick. He was deeply loved by his five grandchildren – Angela and Philip D’Aguilar, Alea and Andre Woods and Keith Allison as well as his five great grandchildren: Yasmeen, Raheem, Deja, Omaree and Theirry.

There was a seaside scattering of his ashes on May 22. Arrangements were made by Oak Hill Funeral Home, San Jose, California.