Known Affectionately as "Doc," Anthony Cecere 
Will Long Be Remembered
Small-town warmth was his lifelong trademark

by Kathy Grantham

You cannot grab a town by the heart for 72 years and slip away quietly and unsung. In 1930, Anthony Cecere, a brand new pharmacist, trained at Fordham University, opened his drugstore and soda fountain in Yorktown Heights. Innately, he applied that rule of human behavior, "do unto others …," never ignoring an emergency, always tending his prescription counter with care and consideration.

Arriving in Yorktown with his beautiful bride, he and Thelma could not find a place to live. They rented a furnished room at Mrs. McBride’s house, a historic landmark known as Hunt’s Tavern during the Revolutionary War, now the site of Freyer’s Nursery on Crompond Road. Pessimists would say the timing was bad … it was the middle of the Great Depression.

Unafraid to open a new business in an economic downturn, Anthony and Thelma knew it was a risk and a gamble, but they had a mission -- to become part and parcel of Yorktown by safeguarding the health of its residents. Operating a valuable resource like a pharmacy, filling prescriptions, dispensing medicines and caring for people is still what Cecere’s does best.

Anthony established a lifelong pattern of hard work and a personal philosophy continued by his son Robert. "I try not to change the way my father ran the pharmacy," he said. "We’re open 7 days a week, with four generations of Ceceres who work full time."

To get an idea of what Yorktown was like in 1930, think of Thornton Wilder’s magnificent play, Our Town. With a population of about 600, everyone knew everyone else. Doc opened his first drug store next to the firehouse where Mitchell’s hardware now stands. In a 15’ x 30’ space, he sold newspapers, cigars, candy and cosmetics, filled an average of five prescriptions a day and served soda and ice cream at the fountain. Today an ice cream soda is pricey, but in the 1930s, Cecere’s charged 10 cents for a soda. Town folks including kids used the soda fountain as a gathering place. During World War II McCall’s magazine picked Cecere’s store as "the typical small town United States drugstore." Photos were taken of models "sippin’ sodas" at the soda fountain.

Keeping the store open every day, the Ceceres were an efficient, energetic twosome, always courteous and interested in their clientele. Years ago, people would call the druggist in the middle of the night for a prescription. Once Anthony and Thelma went to the store at 3 a.m. to fill a prescription -- only to find out when they got there that it was for a dog! In the old days, Doc was in some ways the father confessor, someone who would lend an ear to assuage small hurts, the man from whom a child bought that first soda after the tooth fairy left money under the pillow for this perfect celebration. That describes Doc, involved with his town for more than 70 years.

In the mid- and post-Depression years, prescription drugs ran as much as one dollar. Bartering was as good as money, and sometimes this farming community relied on its harvest for payment. Doc would accept a basket of fruit or fresh vegetables in lieu of cash from the farmers. Like a real life replay of Our Town, small-town warmth and care for its customers is the Cecere formula that has been successful for 72 years, and still counting.

In 1945, the need for expansion led Anthony to buy the property where St. Patrick’s and St. George’s Roman Catholic Church once stood on the west side of Commerce Street, across from his first store. "Before we could take possession, my father had to get permission from the Archdiocese of New York," his son Robert recalled, with a smile, "We’re on holy ground." The new store also had a soda fountain and when the Yorktown basketball team won a game, Doc had sodas on the house for them. Fifty years ago, the drugstore soda fountain was one of very few places in town for youngsters to hang out.

Times change, ways of life become outdated, and the soda fountain succumbed to specialty ice cream stores like Howard Johnson and Friendly’s with an abundance of tantalizing flavors. Drugstores were also becoming "modernized," and removing the soda fountain gave valuable space for more shelves and displays in the interest of becoming more efficient and up to date. Despite the closing of many independently owned drugstores because of chains like CVS, Walmart and others opening pharmacy counters, Cecere’s has prospered. People may feel more secure in having important life-saving prescriptions filled by a pharmacist personally known to them over the years. What has not changed is the Cecere personality, providing the warm touch and service that makes this pharmacy unique.

Joining his father in 1959, Robert also graduated from Fordham University’s School of Pharmacy, worked in a drug store as a youngster, and met his wife Betty over a drug counter, just like his Dad. With Robert at his side, Anthony could now rely on a young pharmacist with training in more recent developments of the profession. "At least 95 percent of the prescriptions we fill today were not in existence 8 years ago," Doc said, in 1959, when Robert joined the business.

Considered one of the most venerable elders of the Yorktown business community, Doc Cecere was named citizen of the year for 1979 by the Yorktown Lions Club. "Doc is one of the unsung heroes of the town, one who in his quiet way has done more for more people than have many who are more often in the public spotlight," noted Town Supervisor Albert Capellini when he presented the award. Upon receiving the Lions Club plaque, Doc credited his family, saying, "I couldn’t have gone for 50 years without the support of my wife, my children and my grandchildren."

Bob now runs the family drugstore with his wife Betty. Among the couple’s nine children, daughters Linda Gordineer, Sandy Viens and Rosemarie Cecere provide customer service at all counters. Sandy also brought a pharmacist into the family when she married Paul Viens, and Thelma’s sister-in-law, Aunt Joan Moccia, also works in sales. Cecere siblings remember well the time spent as youngsters stocking shelves. There’s also a room downstairs with cribs, so that a young mother could work. It’s definitely a family affair.

Anthony "Doc" Cecere died at the age of 95 on July 10, 2002 at Northern Westchester Hospital Center. He is survived by his wife Thelma, 3 children, Anthony of Indianapolis, Indiana; Patricia Mauro of Thornwood; Robert of Yorktown, 11 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren. Doc’s prolific family could possibly supply pharmacists to run Cecere’s Yorktown Pharmacy for another seven decades and beyond.