Celina M. Seitz
Celina McDonald Seitz of Accabonac Road in East Hampton died early last Thursday morning at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care in Quiogue. She was 87 and had been ill with cancer for a year.
Mrs. Seitz was an active parishioner of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton and was involved with teaching knitting classes at the East Hampton Library and the Senior Citizens Center on Springs-Fireplace Road, where she would also have lunch with friends. She hosted knitting circles at home as well, and enjoyed playing dominoes and cards.
She was born on May 10, 1930, in Montauk, one of four children of the former Mary Jane Burke and Charles Leonard McDonald. She grew up in the fishing village at Fort Pond Bay, to which, her family said, several French-Canadian families like theirs had emigrated from the small town of D’Escousse on Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. When the 1938 Hurricane destroyed their houses, many moved on. The McDonalds moved to the Shepherd’s Neck area, below the Montauk School. Her family said that she was proud of her Canadian and Nova Scotian heritage and that as an adult she had visited her parents’ hometown a number of times.
She attended the Montauk School and graduated with the class of 1949 from East Hampton High School. During her adult life, Mrs. Seitz worked at the Osborne Trust bank and for Robert Lynch, a contractor. In May 1951, she married Lewis Seitz. Until 1969, when her husband became the superintendent of Cedar Point Park, they lived on Wireless Road in East Hampton Village. After that they moved with five of what would become six children and seven dogs to a house on a bluff overlooking Northwest Harbor and the Cedar Point Lighthouse, where they lived until her husband retired in 1984. He died in 1999.
Mrs. Seitz loved animals and, in the late 1960s, once raised a fawn whose mother had been killed. The deer was named Mickey, after Mickey Miller of Springs, who had found it and taken it to her at Cedar Point Park knowing she had a knack. The deer knew her voice and would come when she called.
Ms. Seitz had six children, all whom survive her: Mary Jane Rickards of Newfane, Vt.; Lewis Seitz of Blue Point, N.Y.; and Nancy Nagel, Susan Seitz-Kulick, Michael Seitz, and Jay Seitz, who all live in East Hampton. Seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren also survive. In addition, her sister Frances Ecker of Montauk survives. Her sister Eva Collins of East Hampton and her brother, Vincent McDonald of Montauk, died before her.
Ms. Nagel said of her mother that “family and faith were paramount in her life.” She added that her mother “possessed a zest for life and approached each day with a sense of humor, strong compassion, and a genuine love of people.”
The family will receive visitors at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton tomorrow from 2 yo 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. On Saturday a funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church on Buell Lane. Memorial donations have been suggested for the Kanas Center for Hospice Care, 1 Meeting House Lane, Quiogue 11978.