Joseph Anthony ‘Bucky’ Maisto of Dunedin, Florida

Joseph Anthony (“Bucky”) Maisto died peacefully on July 2, 2017 at home in Dunedin, Florida. Loving and well loved. A performer to the end, he made his final bow and gracefully exited the stage as the sun rose on a Sunday morning. Reclining in his favorite chair, members of his family were gathered adoringly at his sides. Divinely choreographed, the sunrise stretched across the Gulf of Mexico through his window to kiss the crown of his head as he drew his final breath.

Bucky was born on October 7, 1937 to Nicholas George Maisto and Genevieve Giovanetti Maisto. He was gifted musically and blessed with a sparkling mind and razor wit. He led St. Joachim’s choir and was the organist for St. Joachim’s church where he played for weekly mass from the age of 11 until he graduated from Trenton Catholic High School. As a child, Bucky played the piano daily and also played basketball and baseball for his school teams. After high school, he attended the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. An accomplished, professional jazz pianist, he led the Bucky Maisto Trio, which delighted patrons in many local and regional venues.

As a young man, when not rehearsing or performing, he was teaching piano lessons. He was also a bread baker, working for more than five decades in his family’s New Colonial Bakery, a Chambersburg mainstay founded by his grandfather in 1910. He also built a career with the New Jersey Department of Corrections where he earned a national reputation for bringing an innovative solution, “tent city,” to overcrowding in New Jersey’s prison system.

Bucky loved jazz, especially the music of Oscar Peterson, Artie Shaw, and Count Basie. He loved good food, good conversation and travel. Most of all, he loved his family. He was a wise, caring, and supportive husband, father, and grandfather.

He was always working and busy, touching countless people through his state government career, selling bread, and performing and teaching music. Though broadly talented, the things for which he was best known were his sweetness and kindness, and his abundant generosity and patience. All who were close to him benefited from knowing him, especially his family.

Bucky is survived by his wife, Joann Masserini Maisto; his children, Gina Maisto Smith and her husband Gary Arlen Smith, Nicole Maisto, Nicholas Maisto and his wife Courtney Maisto, and Kristin Gershengorn and her husband Greg Gershengorn; and his grandchildren, Dylan, Jake, Sawyer, Alex, and Sam Smith, Avrian Maisto and Cory Gershengorn. He is also survived by his former wife, Elizabeth Berkeyheiser Maisto, and many beloved cousins, nieces, and nephews.

A Memorial Mass will be celebrated on Saturday, July 22, 2017 at Our Lady of the Angels Parish/ St. Joachim Church, Butler Street, Trenton, NJ at 11 a.m., followed by lunch at 12:30 p.m. at the Grounds for Sculpture Dance Pavillion, 16 Fairgrounds Road, Hamilton, NJ. Arrangements are being coordinated by Gruerio Funeral Home, Trenton.