Fay L Cohen

A chapel service for Fay will be held Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 11:00 AM at Riverside-Nassau North Chapels, 55 North Station Plaza, Great Neck, NY 11021 followed by interment at Wellwood Cemetery, 1400 Wellwood Avenue, West Babylon, NY 11704.

Fay Cohen is a true legend. Born in 1922, she would have been 101 this March. Fay grew up in Brooklyn and was the only daughter in a family of six children. With that dynamic, she had no choice but to be strong. She had a passion for elephants and art, both of which started at a very young age. She spent her early years drawing and sketching on brown packing paper on the floor of her father’s Army Navy store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Little did she know, pencils and packing paper would turn into oil paint and canvas. She dedicated her life to sharing her talent with hundreds of students over many years and focused on teaching them to get their thoughts and feeling onto canvas in the form of art. This passion carried all the way into her later years as she became the face of her assisted living facility. Fay taught art classes to her fellow residents as a form of cognitive therapy. Fay had the type of strength and passion you only read about in novels. She survived the Great Depression, WWII, and countless other landmark events between then and now. When she broke her hip at age 92, her medical team prepared her family for the worst, but everyone that knew her well wasn’t surprised when she was up and walking around just a few short months later. Fay overcame Covid twice, pneumonia once, and did it all with a smile and a positive attitude. She ultimately decided it was time to join her loved ones up above. Fay leaves behind her youngest brother, Bernard, sisters in law, Sherry and Julie, her two children, Barry and Susan (Solomon), her son in law, Jeff, her three grand children Marisa (Georg), Jennifer (Chris), and John (Dan), and her four great grand children, Aubrey, Hayden, Jackson, and Sophia. While they are heartbroken to have said goodbye, it’s hard not to smile when they think about her swing dancing in the clouds with her mother, Marion, and Father, George, the love of her life, Milton, and the rest of her brothers, Al, Seymour, Irving, and Marvin. Much like the elephants that captivated her heart many years ago, Fay was the symbol of love, wisdom, strength, and prosperity. One of her former students described her best…”while Fay was small in stature, she was a gentle giant.” She will be sorely missed.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in Fay's memory may be made to American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, PO Box 96929, Washington, Washington, D.C. 20090-6929 US, https://secure.aspca.org/donate/donate?ms=wb_top_homepage-donate&initialms=wb_top_homepage-donate&pcode=WEBMEMBER&lpcode=WEBGUARD.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.riversidenassaunorthchapels.com for the Cohen family.