STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Lifelong Staten Islander Rose M. Kozel, 83, of Mariners Harbor, a retired school cafeteria aide and former switchboard operator, died Friday in the Staten Island University Hospital, in Ocean Breeze.
Born Rose M. Wheeler in West Brighton, she attended Curtis High School. She settled in Mariners Harbor in 1947.
Primarily a homemaker, Mrs. Kozel also worked for five years as a cafeteria aide at PS 44 in Mariners Harbor; she retired in the 1980s. Earlier, she was a switchboard operator for AT&T in Manhattan, before leaving the workforce to raise her family.
Mrs. Kozel was a member of the Harbor Terrace AARP and a former member of the Legion of Mary.
"She was a very spiritual person," said her daughter, Ann Kozel.
Mrs. Kozel was an active parishioner of St. Adalbert's R.C. Church, Elm Park, where she taught CCD classes for fourth-graders and was a Eucharistic minister.
She was a former parishioner of St. Michael's R.C. Church, Mariners Harbor, where she taught CCD classes for kindergartners and was a member of the Rosary Altar Society.
She enjoyed going on cruises and had journeyed to the Caribbean, Bermuda, the Panama Canal, South America, Canada and Alaska. She also enjoyed camping and taking trips with her friends from the AARP.
Her family said Mrs. Kozel was a frequent visitor to the Perkins restaurant where the employees were always happy to see her and whom she considered her "Perkins family." She also enjoyed meeting friends at the restaurant and sharing meals with them there.
Her husband of 65 years, Stephen, died in 2012.
Surviving, along with her daughter, Ann, are her daughters, Kathleen Kathleen Pavalkis and Susan Amedo; a sister, Joan Warne, and four grandchildren.
The funeral will be Tuesday from the Casey Funeral Home, Castleton Corners, with a mass at 10 a.m. in St. Adalbert's Church. Burial will follow in St. Peter's Cemetery, West Brighton.
SHARE OBITUARY
v.1.9.6