Mary Milano; 93; a powerful presence for decades at the Union Oyster House

Her age mattered little as she arrived daily to dispense pleasantries and the sayings she heard as a girl, working with her father in a North End jewelry store.

“If God grants me to be 105, I will still come in here,’’ Mr. Milano told the Globe in 2001.

Mrs. Milano, a memorable presence for the famous and the tourists who passed through the restaurant’s doors for about 30 years, died Monday in the Life Care Center of Stoneham of complications from a pulmonary embolism. She was 93 and had lived in Boston’s Harbor Towers.

“She was always a business lady, right up to the end,’’ said her son, Joe, of Lynnfield, who now owns and runs the restaurant with his sister, Mary Ann, of Boston. “She dressed like one, and she acted like one.’’

Those who dined at Union Oyster House often thought of her as more than just a businesswoman. To some, she was a link to the history of the North End, having grown up in the years after World War I. To others, she was a reminder of their own family histories.

When actor Leonardo DiCaprio was in Boston to film the Martin Scorsese movie “The Departed,’’ he stopped by the restaurant regularly, and often could be found by Mrs. Milano’s desk, her son said.

“I would get a message, ‘Joe, Leo’s here. He’s asking for you. He’s with your mother,’ ’’ her son said. “Leo loved her. I’d say to him, ‘You’ve really taken a liking to my mother,’ and he’d say, ‘She reminds me of my grandmother.’ ’’

Suits were Mrs. Milano’s outfit of choice as she received visitors at her desk and observed the ebb and flow of patrons.

“It was always a business suit,’’ her son said. “They were distinctive colors - red or blue or plaid. And always a skirt, never pants. That was not ladylike. And business shoes, nothing with heels.’’

Mrs. Milano was introduced early to the world of business. Her parents, Antonio and Salvatese DiCorrado, emigrated from Sicily, and her father opened a jewelry store in the North End before she was born in 1916.

She shared her birthday and birthplace with Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, who was born 26 years earlier in the same North End building as Mrs. Milano - a fact she enjoyed disclosing to those with an interest in history.

Inspired by her father’s belief in the value of education, Mary DiCorrado initially considered a career in teaching, and attended college in Framingham at what was then the state Normal School.

“She seemed to have an avocation for teaching, and thus Framingham,’’ her son said. “But there was a family business, and that was the DiCorrado jewelers. In those days, you did what the family called for, and she responded.’’

Leaving college before graduating, Mrs. Milano began working full time at her family’s jewelry store on Hanover Street and took part in every aspect. “She was the seller, she was the buyer, she was the bookkeeper,’’ her son said.

Friends introduced her to Joseph A. Milano Sr., who was from Medford and was studying to be a civil engineer.

“They courted - that was the word they used then,’’ their son said. “They probably courted for five years.’’

The Milanos married in 1941, initially raising Mary Ann and Joseph Jr. in the North End. The family later moved to Medford and Mrs. Milano concentrated on her children’s education, examining the possibilities when it was time for them to enter private secondary schools and taking them to Europe in the early 1960s while her husband stayed home to work.

“She bought a car in London, and we did all of Europe in about three months,’’ their son said. “We went to 15 or 16 countries.’’

At the beginning of the 1970s, the Milanos became part owners of the Union Oyster House. A few years later, they bought out the other owners.

Mr. Milano died at 62, in 1977. Two years earlier, Mrs. Milano’s only sibling - her older brother, Richard - had died. A couple of years later, her mother died, too.

While the deaths, so close together, saddened her, it also “probably gave her a little bit of a renaissance,’’ her son said.

She moved from Medford back into Boston and began going into the restaurant every day, regardless of weather or the encroaching years as she passed 80, and then 90.

“As far as the restaurant was concerned, she was truly the story of 9 to 5, seven days a week,’’ her son said. “She often would ask me, ‘Joey, why do we close Thanksgiving and Christmas?’ Her family was the Oyster House, and the customers who came every day were her family. She was here every day - snowstorms, it didn’t matter what happened. It was amazing.’’

In the past few months, when health prompted her to live in the Life Care Center of Stoneham, her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren sometimes asked if she needed anything, if anything was lacking.

Her answer was simple: She missed the restaurant.

“The thing she would always say is, ‘The people who come to the restaurant are just so wonderful,’ ’’ her son said. “There was a value she saw in them, and they in her.’’

In addition to her daughter and son, Mrs. Milano leaves five grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. today in St. Joseph Church in Medford. Entombment will be in Oak Grove Cemetery in Medford.