Nick Mangione Sr. had a ready retort when people questioned how he had purchased a high-profile local country club in the 1970s: “They asked me what family I belonged to. I told them, ‘I belong to the Mangione family. The Mangione family of Baltimore County,’” he told The Baltimore Sun in 1995.

The patriarch of a sprawling Italian American family, who died in 2008, was a self-made multimillionaire real estate developer who owned country clubs, nursing homes and radio stations while supporting an array of civic causes.

His descendants — he and his wife, Mary, had 10 children — went on to be successful in their own right, including excelling in athletics at Loyola University and taking over the family businesses, while a grandchild is a state delegate. One of his 37 grandchildren is now a person of interest in the shocking killing in Manhattan of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.