SALMON RETURNING HOME story

Remembering Rose Eleazer Samuels of the Shinnecock Nation
(1936 - 2011)

Shinnecock Grandmother Rose Eleazer Samuels 1936-2011

Rose Samuels was a direct descendant of Shinnecock and Unkechaug Indians and long a champion of their struggles and of her right to tribal land. Samuels fought unsuccessfully for decades to return to the Shinnecock reservation, where her father was born and raised. She realized the goal only in death.

"It hurts me to my heart that the only way she got her land is to be buried there," said her daughter Sharilyn Daugherty of Stone Mountain, Ga. "It's so bittersweet."

Daugherty said her mother's struggle for the right of all tribal members to live on the Shinnecock reservation would be carried on by her children, grandchildren and other family members.

"It's symbolic that she is going back to where her father is from, and to be buried there," said Janine Tinsley-Roe a cousin of Samuels' and executive director of Shinnecock-Sewanaka Society Inc., which advocates for tribal causes. "She was truly a spiritual elder here, but she didn't have tangible land."

Samuels was a great, great, great granddaughter of the Rev. Paul Cuffee, an Episcopalian Saint who ministered to the Shinnecock faithful 200 years ago.

Rose Eleazer was born in Patchogue on May 1, 1936, the daughter of Paul Cuffee Eleazer and Rose Madelyn Smith Eleazer. She grew up in Sayville and went to Sayville High School, where she was the first Native American on the cheerleading squad. She later attended St. Rose College in Massachusetts.

In 1954 she married Harry L. Samuels and they lived for 20 years in California before divorcing. The couple had five children. Rose Samuels returned to Long Island in the early 1990s and she was famous for a Native American pumpkin bread that she sold at the annual Shinnecock Pow Wows.

In addition to her daughter Sharilyn, Samuels is survived by a son, Ronald Glenn Samuels of Stone Mountain, Ga., two other daughters, Roslyn Gayle Samuels Sledge of Lithuania, Ga. and Darlene Rose Samuels Muhammad of Bay Shore; two sisters, Viola Gavin of Central Islip, and Charlotte Pierce of Centereach; 10 grandchildren and thirteen great grandchildren. She was predeceased by a son, John Richard Samuels, and her former husband. ~ anon