Memories and Mourning

In Floral Park yesterday, friends and relatives said that crash victim Gabriel Della Ripa died because of his love for his native Italy.

Della Ripa, 46, a porter for Pan American Airlines, was flying back from a vacation in Italy, where he had visited his mother. Although he had moved to the United States more than 20 years ago, married his wife, Luisa, here and had two daughters, he never lost his love for Italy, the friends and relatives said. He avidly read Italian publications and closely followed the exploits of his beloved Milan soccer team, they said.

"His heart never left Italy. It never did," said a family friend, Annalisa Gaudio.

Hundred of others throughout the metropolitan area and the nation yesterday mourned victims of the crash of Pan Am Flight 103. New York Gov.

Mario Cuomo issued a statement and ordered flags flown at half-staff through tomorrow. "For all the lives lost and particularly to the Syracuse University community, we extend our most profound and heartfelt sympathies and our prayers for strength," Cuomo said.

Families of 40 victims throughout the metropolitan area mourned yesterday, many planning memorials for those they had lost.

Among the victims was John Michael Gerard Ahern, 26, a Rockville Centre man who for the past year had been based in London as a government bond broker for a Wall Street financial house. Ahern, who was single, was flying home to spend Christmas with his family in Rockville Centre. "He loved London," his sister, Bonnie O'Connor of Rockville Centre, said last night. "He was a golfer and a fisherman and he would go to Ireland and Scotland to golf and fish and to the Alps to ski . . . "

Ahern was born and reared in the village, and attended St. Agnes Grammar School and South Side High School. At the University of Dayton, he received a degree in business management. In addition to his sister, he is survived by his parents, Thomas Francis and Barbara Ann; another sister, Colleen Mary Herrmann of Wheatley Heights; and two brothers, Thomas Francis and Peter Gerard, both of Rockville Centre.

A memorial mass will be said at 5:15 p.m. tomorrow at St. Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Centre.

Another of the victims from the area was Mark Rein, 44, treasurer of Salomon Brothers Inc., who was returning from a business trip to the company's London office. Rein lived in Manhattan and ran the company's global bank credit facilities. He is survived by his wife and two children.

A Woodmere man among the victims was praised yesterday as a tireless and selfless member of the Jewish community who served in numerous organizations. Friends said Joseph Miller, 56, a senior partner of the Manhattan accounting firm Miller-Ellin and Co., was returning from a one-day business trip to London. Miller was a founding member of the board of directors of Yeshiva University's Stern College for Women. He also served as treasurer of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, which has a membership of more than 1,000 congregations around the country.

Earlier this week, John Mulroy left his home in East Northport and traveled to Britain to meet his son, Sean, and four other family members - all of whom lived in Europe. His wife, Josephine, remained in East Northport, preparing a special Christmas meal to serve when they all returned. But the family was among the 258 passengers to die on Pan Am flight 103. A memorial mass for the Mulroys will be said at 7 p.m. Monday at St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church, Greenlawn.

Joseph Tobin Jr. and his wife, Helen, of Hempstead, got a call from Scotland Yard at 3 a.m. yesterday. They were wide awake and, having heard news accounts of the crash, were not surprised. Their son, Mark, 21, was one of the students in Syracuse University's foreign-study program. At least 35 of them died in the crash, authorities said. "He was the most upbeat, positive, enthusiastic person you'd ever meet in your entire life," Mark's brother, Joseph Tobin III, said yesterday. Mark was a senior at Fordham University in the Bronx, on leave to attend the program in Great Britain.

A memorial mass will be said in Mark's honor at 10 a.m. Monday at St. Thomas the Apostle church in West Hempstead. Alexander Lowenstein, 21, another of the Syracuse University students, loved to romp in the waters off Montauk, where his family had a summer home in the Surfside Estates. "Montauk was where my son was happiest," his father, Peter Lowenstein, said in a telephone interview from the family home in Mendham, N.J.

Also killed in the crash was Michael S. Bernstein, a former Jericho resident who lived most recently in Bethesda, Md., and worked for the U.S. Justice Department, according to his family. Flags at the department were lowered to half-staff yesterday to honor Bernstein, a senior lawyer in the department's Nazi-hunting unit. Bernstein, 36, who was married and had two children, was returning from an official trip to Austria. Survivors include his mother, Janet Bernstein of Jericho; his wife, Stephanie; and children, Sara, 7, and Joseph, 4.

News that the death of her daughter, Kesha Weedon, may have been the work of terrorists was bewildering to a Bronx mother as she struggled yesterday with her grief. "I think it's terrible that people kill over things other people don't know about," Barbara Matthews Weedon said. Kesha Weedon, 20, was among the Syracuse students killed. Her boyfriend, Timothy Johnson, a 21-year-old student from Neptune, N.J., had joined her in Europe and was accompanying her home on the plane.

In Westchester, a man answering the phone at the home of Robert Pagnucco said Pagnucco, who was on the flight, was a vice president with Pepsi Cola. But the person declined to give more details.

Another Westchester resident, attorney Arthur Fondiler, 37, was a victim and leaves as his survivors a pregnant wife and a child, none of whose names was available.

This story was reported by Patrick Brasley, William Douglas, Eric Nagourney, Jenny Abdo, Bob Liff, Kinsey Wilson, Debbie Tuma,,, Memories and Mourning., 12-23-1988, pp 05.