Rose Leigh-Manuell, lifelong West Sayville resident, dies at 107

Rose Leigh-Manuell could have attended her 90th Sayville High School reunion this year.

That number is not a typo.

Leigh-Manuell was 107 years old when she died on Feb. 4 after living her whole life within a multiblock radius in West Sayville. She graduated from Sayville High School in 1936.

"She joked about going to the reunion and being the only one there," said her son Gary Leigh-Manuell, 70, also of West Sayville. "She was healthy, with it, quick-witted and funny right to the end. She had a wonderful life."

Family lore has it that when Leigh-Manuell was born on New Year’s Eve in 1918, she was so premature that she fit into a shoebox, and even as a grown-up she never topped 5 feet tall. By the time she was 4, she was helping her family with the commercial fisherman business, assisting her older sister, Josephine, in crating up in ice the fish her father caught.

She and that sister had a double wedding in 1940, and the couples initially shared the same house, with one couple upstairs and the other downstairs.

Darrell Leigh-Manuell supported his family — which included four sons — as a dispatcher for the West Sayville Fire Department, and when he became too ill to work, Rose took over. "She learned his job and then went and did it, so they didn’t lose his income," said Heather Tanza, 53, one of Leigh-Manuell’s 18 grandchildren, who works for a construction company in North Carolina.

Leigh-Manuell later worked at the Village Fish Market, now Claws Seafood Market. She was known as "the coleslaw lady" for the signature recipe she made there until she was 94 and the Village Fish Market closed. Her secret — no Hellmann’s brand, son Gary said. After Leigh-Manuell’s death, Claws posted on its Facebook page: "Rose is and will always be an icon within the Sayville/West Sayville community."

Leigh-Manuell navigated cultural changes in the world and changes in her own life, Tanza said. She was born during the Spanish flu epidemic and lived through the Depression, World War II and the 2020 pandemic, surviving COVID herself. She loved the Yankees, pinochle and bingo, and was active in the former First Reformed Church of West Sayville, now called the New Life Community Church.

"We used to go over every Sunday like clockwork, we all came for Sunday dinner," said grandson Charles Leigh-Manuell, 56, a safety professional who lives in Texas. The children sat at the kids’ table and looked forward to grandma letting them have Hawaiian Punch fruit drink if they finished their meals.

When he was a teenager, "She gave me turkey necks to go crabbing," he said. "She taught me how to clean the crab and how to tell the difference between male and female." Then she’d make them crab salad for lunch, he said.

Rose met a partner, Sal Ventamiglia, at a Parents Without Partners event in 1975 and was with him until his death in 2002.

Tanza called her grandmother "a little spitfire."

"One Christmas I had just broken up with a guy. My grandmother cornered me at a Christmas party; she was probably 92 at this point. She asked me when I was going to find a husband," Tanza said. Tanza turned the tables, saying, "What about you? You’re a single lady." Leigh-Manuell proceeded to lament that a man she had met at church lost interest in her when it was revealed that she was in her 90s.

"She was a very social person," Tanza said. "She told very funny stories about her escapades with the senior citizens."

Leigh-Manuell lived alone until she turned 100 and had a fall. At rehab, she enjoyed interacting with all the people and afterward moved into Good Samaritan Nursing Home. When she contracted COVID at the age of 101, she jokingly told news reporters that she attributed her strength to her beloved Golden Oreo cookies, son Gary said.

In 2022, Newsday published a feature about Leigh-Manuell after local author Theresa Dodaro rallied half a dozen volunteers to read to her due to her failing eyesight. When asked then about her key to a long life, Leigh-Manuell replied, "Be kind to everyone and they’ll be kind to you."

In addition to Gary, she is survived by sons Bob, Jimmy and Tom, daughter-in-law Kathy, 18 grandchildren, 33 great-grandchildren and 21 great-great-grandchildren.

Visitation was Feb. 10 at the Raynor & D'Andrea Funeral Homes in West Sayville, followed by a funeral service there the next day.

By Beth Whitehouse

Special to NewsdayBethWhitehouse1

Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.