Elena (Caito) Pastore, wife of John O. Pastore, the late Rhode Island governor and U.S. senator, died Thursday at her daughter's home in Bonita Springs, Fla.
She was 93 and had been living for the last several years with one of the couple's daughters, Francesca Pastore, said their son, John O. Pastore Jr., in a telephone interview Sunday. She died surrounded by her daughter and other family members, several weeks after contracting a gastrointestinal illness, he said.
The youngest of 10 children, Elena Caito grew up in a close-knit Italian-American family on Oak Street in Providence. Her future husband also grew up in Providence, and the two were introduced by one of Elena's brothers, said their son, a cardiologist at Quincy Medical Center near Boston.