Paid Notice: We are stunned and saddened to share the sudden death of Susan Leyner Wartur of Springs on Monday, August 25th. Sue was the beloved wife of the late Larry Wartur, with whom she shared 63 years of marriage, and beloved mother of their only daughter, the light of their lives, Lisa Wartur. August 30th would have marked the couple’s 66th wedding anniversary.
Having just received the joyful news of her triumph over cancer and related surgery, her loss is all the more heartbreaking.
Sue was born in Jersey City, NJ, in 1938, to Sylvia Horowitz (nee Goldfarb) and Louis Leyner, but loved and raised by George Horowitz. She grew up in New York and lived much of her adult life in Queens, where she and Larry built their careers and began their family. Together, they bought land in Springs, East Hampton, and gradually built the home of their dreams — a house, named “Wind in the Trees,” that eventually became their full-time residence and the place where Sue’s soul was most deeply nourished. She loved the East End with every fiber of her being: the sea, the air, the sense of community. She often said that living here fed her spirit in a way that nothing else could.
Her professional life was as dynamic and varied as her passions. She started her career as a member of the English Department faculty at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Performing Arts at Lincoln Center – the “Fame” school – where she cultivated and inspired generations of young artists. As there was no one better to sing the school’s praises, Sue eventually became Director of Public Relations for the school.
Sue wrote for both TV Guide and The Doctor’s Wife as a young woman, and later became Associate Professor of Writing and World Literature at Dowling College. In her 60s, she added to her oeuvre the title of Psychoanalyst, providing care and insight to countless blessed patients.
Sue could be earthy, yet elegant; subdued yet wild; social yet solitary; serious yet silly; fiery yet calm; cerebral yet also enjoyed the simplicities in life. She’d been at the wheel of silver Camaros, Jaguars and Mercedes. She taught at the ‘Fame’ High school and also did their PR, arranging for legends like Zubin Mehta to visit the school, and getting the press to cover the event. She began studying for her 2nd Master’s Degree in her 60’s and had a long and lucrative 2nd career in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. She spent time at desks, in front of classrooms, at camps as a counselor, and as a therapist in leather chairs helping others.
Yet Sue’s truest artistry was in the way she lived. She and Larry once owned a houseboat, which they transformed into a floating sanctuary of light, love, and music. They festooned it with candles and filled it with friends and family. Sue was known to play guitar into the night, creating a world of romance that entranced all around them. Her daughter Lisa learned guitar from her, and many in her circle followed her example into sailing and boating — her passion for the water rippled outward, touching each life in turn. She sailed trimirans and Rhodes 19’s, and was first mate to her husband Larry on their 31-foot Owens cabin cruiser, which their daughter christened “Love Boat.” The boat graced the slips of many an East Hampton marina back in the day.
Later, living by the sea in East Hampton, Sue carried that same sense of magic: she loved dining by the water and sailing across it, and coined her own phrase for that joy — “nautical inebriation” — one of many memorable sayings that fell from her lips with ingenious, poetic precision.
Susan was also a lifelong opera devotee, treasuring the voices of Rise Stevens, Renata Tebaldi, and, most recently, Nadine Sierra. Many of the congregants at Temple Adas Israel were fortunate to hear Susan’s own beautiful operatic voice during services.
At the center of Sue’s vibrant life was always her family. She celebrated her husband through every season of their life together, caring for him in his final years with the conviction that it was never a burden, but rather another expression of her love. Her daughter Lisa and son-in-law Steven were the heart of her joy. She also cherished her brother, niece, nephew, cousins, neighbors, her husband’s caregivers, and an expansive circle of friends. Sue found profound spiritual fulfillment and deep companionship within her beloved Adas Israel community, where she drew and provided tremendous comfort and strength.
Sue is survived by her daughter Lisa Rachel Wartur and son-in-law Steven Lance; her brother Neil Horowitz; niece Ellen Wolfson; nephew Roger Wolfson; cousins Debrah Block Krol and Henry Krol, Renee Rappaport, Toby & Steve Radwan, Bonnie Klein, Richard Levy, and Amy Cohen.
A sanctuary service was held on Thursday, August 28th, at 10:30 AM at Temple Adas Israel, followed by internment at the Temple’s Chevra Kodetia Cemetery. There is an archived livestream of the service available for viewing on the Temple’s website. https://templeadasisrael.org/our-virtual-home (under ‘previous broadcasts’ — ‘funeral of Sue Wartur’).
Family has suggested memorial donations in Sue’s memory to:Temple Adas Israel Hebrew School, PO Box 1378, Sag Harbor, N.Y. 11963;
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School Alumni & Friends Legacy Society, 100 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10023;
the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, Grand Central Station, P.O. Box 4777, New York, N.Y. 10163;
the Shore Line Trolley Museum, 17 River Street, East Haven, CT 06512
