Community Church Of Syosset Celebrates Centenarian’s Birthday

On March 13, Community Church of Syosset gathered to celebrate a congregant’s birthday.

But it wasn’t just any birthday, it was a day that made Elizabeth Kappstatter a centenarian.

Elizabeth (Betty) Kappstatter was born in 1923 in a big brown house on what is now Baylis Place, Syosset.

Growing up, she went to church every Sunday, sometimes twice in a day, as her parents were very active in the church. She had gone to Hicksville High School, because at the time, there was no high school in Syosset. But she’d finish high school in Washington D.C., because her family relocated there when she was 15 because her father worked for a contractor who was building the National Gallery of Art.

In 1942, Kappstatter married her husband Arthur at Trinity Lutheran Church in Hicksville. They rented the house on Baylis Place where Kappstatter grew up.

In 1953, after serving in the military, Arthur built their current home at Church Street on a property that was in Kappstatter’s family. From there, they began attending Community Church of Syosset with their children Jeff and Betty.

“From the early days we didn’t have a pastor, people just met,” Kappstatter said. “We worked on Christmas corner for 10 years. It was quite an event. We all worked all year long leading up to the first Saturday in December! People waited for it every year. We sold beautiful, quality things. I don’t think it would go over today. We used to have rummage sales too which we don’t have anymore. One year we tried an auction but that didn’t go over so well.”

For 25 years or more, Kappstatter worked at the Syosset Central School District as an attendance teacher. Her job description was basically social worker in an authoritative setting! Her job encompassed much more than attendance though, it involved anything having to do with student numbers; projections for student enrollment for the future or neighborhood fluctuations, anything to do with student numbers.

—Submitted by Community Church of Syosset

It is astounding to think that a private collection of masterworks as wide-ranging and important as these could be assembled by a 32-year-old connoisseur, but Hong Gyu Shin is an internationally recognized figure in the global art world. He shares more than a hundred of his treasures with us by such greats as Whistler, Lautrec, Boucher, Daumier, Delacroix, Derain, Balthus, de Kooning and many other top-tier names from art history. Shin is a synthesizer. His credo: “Avant-garde visual culture, irrespective of traditions, is timeless.”

To purchase exhibition tickets, visit the museum or scan code