Rose Ceselka Of Hampton Bays Dies July 12

Rose Ceselka of Hampton Bays died on July 12, just shy of her July 20 birthday. She was 105.

Ms. Ceselka was born in Manhattan and lived in a tenement on Orchard Street. Her mother was cook a in Manhattan, born in Galicia in eastern Europe, and migrated to Manhattan on the vessel Blecker out of Hamburg Germany on December 10, 1906. Her father Michael Demtriw was a carpenter and died from the influenza epedemic in 1918.

According to her family, Ms. Ceselka’s passion was gardening. She grew enormous tomatoes and beautiful flowers, they said, noting that she could always be found outdoors working in the yard. She loved music and dancing, baking sweets, animals, was an avid reader and read aloud to the residents in the facility in which she resided in her 100s.

She had a great sense of humor, her family noted, loved to joke, make people laugh, and just be around people in general. She persevered through life on life’s terms and always seemed to make lemonade out lemons, they said.

According to her family, she died not because she was sick or from old age — she was quite healthy for a person her age, they said — but from adult failure to thrive caused by the COVID quarantine that was mandated where she resided. She was a “doer” and the confinement took her will to live, they said.

Ms. Ceselka was predeceased by her parents Theresa (Bienkowski) Demetriw and Michael Demetriw; her husband Nicholas Ceselka; her son-in-law Ricky Gallo; four siblings, Harry Demytor, Joseph Demytor, Sophie Anne Demytor, and Basil (Willy) Kuch; and her best friends Olga C’miel and Steffi Agassi.

She is survived by her two daughters, Karen Claudia (Ceselka) Gallo and Catherine Patricia Ceselka; her two granddaughters, Gigi (Gallo) Percival and Ramona Anastasia Gallo; one adopted granddaughter, Patricia Everhart; two great-grandsons, Christopher and Daniel Percival; and leaves behind her cat Rosie.

Memorial donations in her name may be made to Kent Animal Shelter, 2259 River Rd, Calverton, NY 11933.