Flora Schierhorst, Sea Cliff’s oldest resident, dies at 105

Flora Schierhorst, of Sea Cliff, was a resilient woman, her son, Herbert W. Schierhorst, said. Around the time Flora turned 100, she broke her hip while home alone. She contacted Glen Cove Hospital herself, and after a short stint in observation, her hip began to heal itself, something which Herbert said astounded doctors who expected to have to replace it. Flora also suffered a heart attack in 2016 at 101, and even that did not take her.

Flora lived life on her own terms, something which was evident even in her death by natural causes on Jan. 9. The night before, as her younger son, David, tucked her into bed, she told him it was time for her to go. The next morning, David discovered she was right. Flora died peacefully during the night in the home that her husband, Herbert H., had built in 1948. She was 105, Sea Cliff’s oldest resident before her death.

“She said to me, ‘I’m dying,’ and she just ran out of gas,” David said. “I told her to go to sleep. I kissed her, and in the morning, she was gone.”

Born in Brooklyn on Aug. 17, 1914, Flora was the third of Peter and Margaret Le Tellier’s 11 children, although only eight survived to adulthood. The family moved to Glen Head in 1919 after Peter accepted a house painting job with JP Morgan. Two years later, they moved to the Landing in Glen Cove. Flora remained on the North Shore for the next 100 years of her life.

Although she attended Glen Cove public schools, Flora had to leave Glen Cove High School when she was 16 because of a blood clot in her brain, Herbert W. said. Although she fully recovered, she never went back to graduate.

Flora spent the next few years working as a cook on the Santini Estate in Brookville until 1938 when she met Herbert H. Schierhorst at a dance in Glen Cove. The two married after only a few months of dating because Herbert W. said his father did not want Flora to get away.

After the Schierhorsts were married, they moved to Sea Cliff, where Herbert H. worked in the village’s Department of Public Works. After settling down, they had their three children — Herbert W. in 1940, Janet in 1943 and David in 1950. Over the years, they were given five children and one great-grandchild, and the two stayed married until Herbert H. died of colon cancer in 2007.

Flora’s children said she was known around the neighborhood as one of the most welcoming mothers in town. Herbert W. said she was always willing to invite her children’s friends over for meals, and even opened up their home to a young cousin who was having trouble with his parents.

All of Flora’s children said they remember their mother as someone whose personality defied age. Even as Sea Cliff’s oldest living resident, she still knew how to make people laugh and how to make people feel welcome wherever she went. And until the moment she died, the people in her life made sure she knew how much she meant to them.

“Mom was great,” Herbert W. said. “We loved her very much.”