Reading to Rosie: Facebook volunteers answer call to help centenarian pass the time

Rosie Leigh-Manuell is a legend in her own time, which spans more than a century and includes the dawn of the chocolate chip cookie; the secret to her Long Island-famous coleslaw; and a newfound Facebook-assisted celebrity.

“Everybody loves her,” said her son, Gary Leigh-Manuell, of West Sayville. “You mention my mother’s name and it’s, ‘Oh! Rosie!’ She’s won everybody over.”

Leigh-Manuell, 103, is a popular resident at her Sayville nursing home, thanks to efforts by local author Theresa Dodaro to rally volunteers to read to her. Leigh-Manuell’s eyesight is failing, and she can’t hear very well, making it difficult for her to watch television or read by herself. Sitting alone with her thoughts, she gets bored, said her son, who describes his mother as “a living history book.” 

Leigh-Manuell is known for the coleslaw she sold at the now-defunct West Sayville fish market. When Dodaro posted on Facebook on Aug. 31 seeking reading volunteers for the great-great-grandmother, dozens commented.

Dodaro, author of the historical fiction, time-slip novel “The Bayman’s Daughter” about life and family bonds in the Sayville hamlet from 1912 to 2012, got an email last month from Kathy Leigh-Manuell, of Cincinnati, explaining that her mother-in-law was a bayman’s daughter in need of companionship.

Although her mother-in-law is no bookworm, Kathy Leigh-Manuell said she thought Dodaro’s book might spark memories of Leigh-Manuell’s upbringing in West Sayville and the decades she has spent there since. Dodaro visited Leigh-Manuell the next day and read to her, unlocking memories for the centenarian of her youth in the Dutch community of West Sayville and of her father’s work as a bayman, clam digger and deep-sea fisher. 

Leigh-Manuell told Newsday of her father’s fishing boat — The Two Sisters — and her chores on the bay. Her sister, Josephine, was responsible for placing ice in fish chests while she handled nailing the lids shut before the day’s catch was trucked away to markets. Growing up, she played baseball in the street and roller-skated in her basement. 

“I had a wonderful mother, a wonderful father and a wonderful sister,” Leigh-Manuell said. She and her sister shared a joint wedding and honeymoon, visiting New York City, New Jersey and Philadelphia to tour historical sites. 

When Leigh-Manuell was born on New Year’s Eve, almost a year into the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, she was so small she fit inside a shoebox. She said her parents tucked her inside a toaster oven to warm her. Her tiny stature didn’t change much, earning her the jovial nicknames of “half-pint” and “shrimp.” Although she reached a mighty height of 4 feet 9 inches, she is shorter in her golden years, now only 4 feet 4 inches, she said. 

But don't think she’s a diminutive senior with no panache. Leigh-Manuell still regularly participates in physical fitness and exercise activities at the nursing home. Her son said his mother has a stubborn streak — she worked until she was 95, drove until she was 98 and lived independently until she was 100. 

The secret to Leigh-Manuell’s long, healthy life? 

“Be kind to everyone, and they’ll be kind to you,” she said. 

A full-circle moment

Dodaro had not visited the nursing home since her mother’s death in September 2016. She said receiving Kathy Leigh-Manuell’s Facebook message helped her muster the courage to return.

“It was just a real emotional thing,” Dodaro said. “To have a purpose there again, it made me feel good about it all. There’s kind of a happy ending to something that was really sad and painful.” 

The Leigh-Manuell family said they were moved by Dodaro’s act of kindness, as well as by the at least half a dozen others who have visited their matriarch or plan to.

“She needs that personal one-on-one to get her going,” Kathy Leigh-Manuell said. “Once she has a visitor, it’s like the lights go back on. She becomes really involved in the conversation, and all these memories come flooding back.”

Maria Cea, of Sayville, has visited Leigh-Manuell a few times after seeing Dodaro’s Facebook post. Cea’s mother is in hospice at the facility, making it easy for her to pop over to Leigh-Manuell’s room, which she said she plans to do regularly. 

Cea read dozens of Facebook comments about Leigh-Manuell to her, many of which gushed about her famous coleslaw. (The secret to good coleslaw, Leigh-Manuell said, is to “cut [the cabbage] up nice and fine” and avoid Hellman’s mayonnaise.) One commenter posted a photo of a youthful Leigh-Manuell with her first boyfriend. When Cea showed her the picture, she said Leigh-Manuell howled with laughter at seeing herself so many decades ago. 

“I wanted to see her smile. I wanted to show her that picture,” Cea said. “She smiled and loved it.”

By Brinley Hineman

brinley.hineman@newsday.com

Brinley Hineman covers the Town of Hempstead and the City of Long Beach for Newsday. She previously was a reporter in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a West Virginia native.