Leroy Kayser was considered “a Renaissance man,” his family said. He was “intelligent, articulate, witty, charming, and incredibly well read, despite not having a formal college education.”
He enjoyed music and took meticulous care of his property in East Hampton. For many years, he and his wife, Julia, who celebrated 81 years of marriage earlier this month, would often gather at the beach with an entourage of friends to play Scrabble games that everyone looked forward to.
Mr. Kayser, who was 99, died at home on Jan. 19 of complications of influenza. He had been ill for only a short time.
Mr. Kayser was born in Brooklyn on April 29, 1925, to Arthur Kayser and the former Lillian Bressman.
He and his wife met as teenagers on Coney Island, where they lived just a few houses apart. They shared their story in an article in The East Hampton Star a year ago, recounting how, three years after meeting, they took a bus to Maryland to elope on Jan. 8, 1944. He was a few months shy of his 19th birthday, she was 16.
During World War II, Mr. Kayser served in the Merchant Marine, assigned to the engine rooms of ships that took troops to and from the Mediterranean theater of operations.
The Kaysers lived in Brooklyn, where they raised their son, Kenneth, and daughter, Laura.
While Mr. Kayser did not go to college, he “was able to obtain an important position as the chief systems analyst at Federated Department Stores in Brooklyn,” his family wrote.
The Kaysers found their way to East Hampton in the early 1980s, bought a house here, and moved to it full time in 1985. Both stayed active throughout their lives. “Neither one of us is a couch potato. We both get out and get our old bones moving,” Mr. Kayser told The Star last January.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Kayser is survived by a son, Kenneth Kayser, and his wife, Sally, who live in North Carolina, and by a daughter, Laura Leitner, and her husband, Arnold, of East Northport. Also surviving are his grandchildren, Paul Kayser and his wife, Carol, of New Hyde Park, and Melanie Perlson and her husband, Benjamin, who live in Centerport. He had three great-grandchildren, Levi, Ari, and Lily Perlson.
“His kindness, empathy, generosity, and sharp wit will be greatly missed by his family and all those that knew him,” his family wrote.
