Dorothy Elizabeth Farruggia

Dorothy (Tootsie) Elizabeth Sheaves Farruggia, 99, of Winter Garden, Florida, and formerly of Rhodell, West Virginia, passed away on June 4, 2026, at AdventHealth Winter Garden Hospital after a brief illness.

She was born on July 16, 1926, to the late William Bryant Sheaves and Barbara Ellen Kosnoski Sheaves in the coal camp of Greenwood, in Fayette County, West Virginia. She and 9 of her 10 siblings were all born at home and delivered by a coal company doctor. Only one of her brothers was actually born in a hospital.

On her mother’s side, she was the daughter and granddaughter of Polish immigrants who came to America in 1904. On her father’s side, she was a descendant of English and Irish immigrants who first came to America in the late 1600s and early 1700s. One of her third great-grandmothers was a daughter of the brother of Daniel Boone’s wife Rebeccah. Both of her paternal great-grandfathers were first cousins who served on opposite sides in the American Civil War.

Her grandfather and father were electricians for the Coal Run Coal Company for most of their lives. As “company men” their families were a little more well-to-do than those of union miners. When Dorothy was a young girl, a candy salesman who boarded with her family began calling her “Tootsie” and the nickname stayed with her all of her life. During World War II, Dorothy and her older sister Margaret worked for munitions plants in Delaware and New Jersey, boarding with their mother’s relatives while there.

After the war, Dorothy went to work for Byron Spaun, a close friend of her father, who owned a number of small movie theaters throughout Fayette and neighboring Raleigh counties. In 1947 she accompanied Spaun and his wife to Rhodell, another coal town in southern Raleigh County, where she worked the concession stand at the Valley Theater, a new one Spaun acquired.

The Valley Theater was just two doors away from J&F Cash Grocery, owned by Joe and Nellie Farruggia, immigrants from Sicily. It was while working at the theater that Dorothy met their son, Charles Farruggia. Charles and Dorothy were married on May 17, 1948, in Beckley, West Virginia.

For several years, Charles and Dorothy traveled to Columbia, South Carolina, to buy fresh produce and other supplies ordered by the independent grocers in Rhodell and surrounding coal towns who were competing with the local coal company stores for miners’ business. In 1951, Charles built and opened a gas station in Rhodell on land owned by his parents that had once been part of a small coal mine operation. In 1952, the couple welcomed their first child, Joseph, and in 1955 their daughter Patricia was born. The couple and their children continued to live in an apartment above his parents’ grocery store until 1956, when they built a home across from their garage. They welcomed their third child, Mary, in 1961.

Over the years, the family business grew from a two-bay service station to a four-bay station and a car wash. Charles and Dorothy were active all their lives in the community of Rhodell, where he served as mayor for one term from 1960 to 1961, and was the chief of the volunteer fire department for more than 25 years. He owned and operated his gas station for 40 years, until his death in 1991.

Dorothy served as a poll worker for the Rhodell precinct from 1960 to 2020 and was honored in 2021 as a member of the West Virginia Voter Hall of Famie for her service at the polls and for voting in every national, state and local election since 1952.

Dorothy was also active at the Rhodell Church of God, which she joined not long after her marriage. She served many years as a Sunday School teacher, a director of the church’s annual Christmas pageant, and in various activities with the church’s women’s group. She was honored later in life for more than 50 years of service to the church.

Dorothy was also an avid doll collector and was a member of doll collector clubs in both Beckley and Charleston, West Virginia. One of her other hobbies was decorating for Christmas, for which she built over the years whole miniature cities and landscapes that displayed in her living room, and adding to her extensive collection of Hallmark collectible ornaments for her Christmas tree, which stayed up all year. She also enjoyed scrapbooking and made numerous scrapbooks for herself and family members using hundreds of photos accumulated over more than 80 years.

In her later years, she divided time between her home in Rhodell and her daughter Mary’s home in Cross Lanes, West Virginia, to help care for her only grandson, Charles Farruggia Perdue (Chazz), who was born in 2001.

Dorothy moved to Winter Garden, Florida, in 2022 after the family home was sold, and lived with her daughter, Mary Perdue, and grandson, Chazz Perdue.

When Dorothy passed away, she was surrounded by her three children, Joseph Farruggia of Orlando, Patricia Farruggia of Charleston, West Virginia, and Mary Perdue of Winter Garden, and her grandson Chazz Perdue, also of Winter Garden.

Other survivors include three brothers, Charles Sheaves and his wife, Jean, of Orlando, Florida; Joe Sheaves and his wife Sandy, of Summerville, South Carolina; and Gilbert Sheaves and his wife, Jane, of Henderson, North Carolina.

She is also survived by numerous nieces, nephews and cousins. She cherished her family members and loved spending time with them all.

She was predeceased by her parents, William and Barbara Kosnoski Sheaves; her husband, Charles Farruggia; her siblings, Margaret Sheaves Gravely, William B. Sheaves Jr., James Sheaves, John Sheaves, Jackie Sheaves (who died at age 5 in 1936), George Sheaves, and Barbara Sheaves Milli.