Seymour “Sy” Rothfarb, a man familiar to many at the Fountains country club of Lakeworth, Florida where he and his beloved wife, Ruth, lived since 1983, died on Saturday, July 4 at the Morse Life Hospice Center. He was 97.
Sy was a man of many parts. Father to sons Peter and Edward, grandfather to Julie, Lisa and David, and great grandfather to Benjamin and Aaron, he wore the mantle of proud, adoring patriarch with charm and humor.
He was a master of machines, having worked in the aviation industry for 50 years and serving in the Army Air Corps during WWII. His specialty was jet engines; what made them tick and nursing them back to health when necessary. He sometimes found himself peering inside one balanced on an elevated bucket in the frigid cold of a dark winter night, anxious passengers peering out the windows waiting for his healing touch to work its magic.
Sy attended Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, New York. During high school he had a paper route and was known as “Scoop” to his friends. It was there that he met Ruth Leland, the love of his life. Their marriage spanned 75 years before Ruth passed away in 2018.
They married just before Sy was called overseas where he was stationed in England. After the war they settled in Coney Island, living on Sea Breeze Avenue not far from the boardwalk and close to the trolley barn that sheltered the cars that travelled the rails embedded in their street. Peter was born in 1947 and Ed in 1950. The young family decided to pull up stakes from Brooklyn and seek greener pastures in the suburbs of Long Island.
They travelled every weekend looking for houses with the kids bundled in the back seat. When they finally found their dream house, a modest ranch in East Meadow, they were beside themselves with dreams of their life to be. As they pulled away from the curb the realtor ran out, waving his arms frantically. In their excitement they had left young Ed inside.
In the last part of his career Sy worked for General Electric Jet Engines as the GE field service head for Miami International airport. At the Fountains he played golf and cards with the guys.
Although Sy’s father Harry was a violinist (he used the stage name Happy Roth and was at one point the bandleader of Minsky’s Burlesque House) Sy never showed an interest in playing an instrument. However, he did take up sculpture, carving flowing organic shapes from marble and stone. And, after Ruth’s passing, he surprised everyone by taking up watercolor painting. He had a gift, as through he and Grandma Moses were cut from similar cloth. When the family told others about this late avocation, people were not expecting much besides a nice story that might appear in the AARP magazine. But when they actually saw his paintings, the almost universal sound they made was like those viewing a particularly majestic firework blooming overhead.
Family was paramount. He could be stubborn at times but often came around when others spoke from the heart. He was a fighter and did not give in. In East Meadow he built the home’s garage with his own hands. When the partially finished frame was blown down by a hurricane, he stood it back up and finished the job.
That was Sy
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