OUR SPONSOR
Greater Sayville coverage is funded in part by The Shed, your scratch kitchen for brunch and dinner daily in West Sayville.
Rose Leigh-Manuell was so tiny when she was born that her family put her in a shoebox and set it in the oven on low — a makeshift incubator in a West Sayville home on New Year’s Eve in 1918.
She’d later joke that the improvised solution worked because she survived. “But I didn’t get much bigger,” she would say with a smile. That little premature baby grew into a woman whose resilience carried her through 107 years of life in the only community she ever called home.
Leigh-Manuell, a lifelong Sayville resident, died earlier this month at 107. Her funeral services were also held earlier this month in West Sayville — at Raynor & D’Andrea Funeral Home on Montauk Highway.
Born Rose Adrianna Sanders on Dec. 31, 1918, to Tillie and Cornelius Sanders, her earliest memories centered around family and the waterfront, according obituary information posted by the funeral home. Her dad was a fisherman, and Rose and her older sister, Josephine, were expected to help from a young age.
While their parents unloaded the daily catch into crates and Josephine packed the fish in ice, 4-year-old Rose nailed the crates shut.
“She had her first job at 4 years old and she was expected to keep up,” her family recalled in her obituary. It was a theme that would define much of her life.
A graduate of Sayville High School’s Class of 1936, Rose was a strong student who earned mostly A’s and B’s. Decades later, she proudly participated in Sayville High School’s traditional parade of classes at her grandson’s graduation — the sole representative of 1936.
When she died on Feb. 4, she was only a few months shy of celebrating her 90th anniversary of graduating high school.
After high school, she worked. On Thanksgiving Day in 1940, she and her sister Josephine celebrated a double wedding — Rose marrying Darrell Leigh-Manuell, Josephine marrying Peter Sluiter. The newlyweds initially shared a house, one couple upstairs and the other downstairs.
Rose and Darrell Leigh-Manuell raised four sons while she immersed herself in church and community life. A longtime member of the First Reformed Church of West Sayville, she sang in the choir, taught Sunday school and participated in youth programs.
She also served as a dispatcher for the West Sayville Fire Department.
After Darrell Leigh-Manuell’s death following a long illness, Rose Leigh-Manuell focused on raising her youngest son and making ends meet. She converted the upstairs of her home into a permitted apartment and rented it out for more than four decades.
At 55, she returned to a familiar trade — taking on a job at a local fish market, where she became known for her signature cole slaw. She worked there for 39 years, retiring at 94.
In 1975, she attended a Parents Without Partners event hoping to learn the Hustle. On the dance floor, she met Sal Ventamiglia. The two shared 27 years together — socializing with friends, attending family gatherings and spending afternoons watching her beloved New York Yankees — until his death in 2002.
Rose embraced many changes over her century-plus life, but none more enthusiastically than disposable cameras, her obituary said. She brought one to nearly every family event, filling her refrigerator with photos of her favorite subjects, her grandchildren.
She was meticulous about birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, ensuring cards and gifts arrived on time and that each grandchild was treated equally. Christmases often featured identical gifts for each cousin, prompting family jokes about a “manufacturing plant” in her basement.
A self-described social butterfly, Rose remained active in church, joined a senior group and participated in the Ladies Auxiliary of the West Sayville Fire Department.
At 101, she entered Good Samaritan nursing home, where she found renewed social connection. Shortly after arriving, she survived COVID-19, as reported by Greater Long Island and multiple other news outlets.
101-year-old in Sayville survives the coronavirus
She continued to thrive at Good Samaritan, enjoying activities and time spent with her roommate.
In addition to her husbands, Darrell and Sal, Rose was predeceased by her parents; her sister, Josephine; and three daughters-in-law, Jojo, Jackie and Donna.
She is survived by her four sons, Bob, Jimmy and daughter-in-law Ronnie, Tom and daughter-in-law Kathy, and Gary; 18 grandchildren; 33 great-grandchildren; and 21 great-great-grandchildren, as well as many nieces, nephews and friends.
Visitation earlier this month at Raynor & D’Andrea Funeral Home was followed by a chapel service and interment at Sayville Union Cemetery.
Top: Rose Leigh-Manuell (Raynor & D’Andrea Funeral Home)
