EUGENIA STANLEA: A Witness to the 20th Century, Dead at 105. Main Street resident, born with aviation, was 18 before women could vote, saw man land on the moon

Eugenia Stanlea was born at the beginning of aviation and saw men walk on the moon; she moved in time from the Victrola to the iPod, from the party line to the Internet. When she was 18 two years still remained before women were allowed to vote.

Mrs. Stanlea died at home on Main Street in East Hamptoin last Thursday at the age of 105.

Known to everyone as Genia, was born Eugenia Mary Urban in 1900 in Buffalo, the daughter of Polish immigrants, and grew up in nearby Lackawanna. As a young woman, she moved to Detroit, where she met and married Stanislas Szynkielewski. Born in Warsaw, then under czarist rule, at the age of 14 he escaped across the border to Germany and made his way to Rotterdam, where he sailed for America with a ticket sent to him by his three sisters.

Her husband changed his name to Stanley Stanlea and, after a spell in Hollywood where he worked as an extra in Tom Mix movies and appeared in "The Mark of Zorro" with Douglas Fairbanks, he became an automotive draftsman, and then hairdresser in New York City. Beginning in 1928 the couple moved between Manhattan and East Hampton, where Mr. Stanlea had a hairdressing salon at the Maidstone Arms.

In the city, Mrs. Stanlea studied art at Cooper Union. She would resume painting many years later, in her 90s, with a series of landscapes that were shown at Ashawagh Hall in Springs.

The Maidstone Arms burned down in 1935, but Mr. Stanlea kept his salon going, working at the Sherry Netherland Hotel in New York and in Westhampton Beach, and finally settling in what was then the Masonic temple on Main Street in East Hampton - now London Jewelers - at the start of World War II.

During the war, Mrs. Stanlea raised chickens in the backyard of their house on Fithian Lane. The Stanleas restored both that house and another one on Huntting Lane, and converted a two-car garage off Main Street into commercial space that now houses the Blue Parrot restaurant.

After her husband was injured in a car accident in 1943, she started her own business, Eugenia M. Stanlea's Children's Wear, and made giant papier-machŽ sculptures that decorated its windows, her family said. When Mr. Stanlea was able to reopen his salon she began working as a volunteer for the East Hampton Ladies Village Improvement Society's Bargain Box.

Mrs. Stanlea and her husband sang with the Hamptons Choral Society, and Mr. Stanlea was an actor with the Guild Hall Players. After his death in 1977, she spent some of her happiest hours painting, knitting, crocheting, and doing fine needlework at the East Hampton Senior Citizens Center.

She cherished the certificates she was given on memorable occasions, such as one from Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. on her 100th birthday, which was named Eugenia Stanlea Day in Suffolk County in a proclamation signed by Suffolk County Clerk Edward P. Romaine.

At the time of her 100th birthday, Mrs. Stanlea was proud to say that except for half an aspirin a day and some vitamins, she took no medication and could still climb the stairs to her second-floor apartment on Main Street.

For the past seven and a half years, she was cared for by Rasa Tarailaite, who became part of her family, Mrs. Stanlea's daughter, Joy Stanlea Squires, said. Besides Ms. Squires, who lives in East Northport and East Hampton, she is survived by a granddaughter, Debra Squires of West Halifax, Vt., a grandson, David Squires of Richmond Hill, Ga., and four great-grandsons.

A private memorial service will be held at a later date. Memorial contributions have been suggested to the East Hampton Town Senior Citizens Center, Site Council 8, Springs-Fireplace Road, East Hampton 11937.