By MATTHEW KASS, EDITOR
January 22, 2021 at 2:23 AM
Manuel Pereira was the assistant principal at Jonathan Dayton High School for many years, where he fostered friendships with members of the school community.
Manuel Pereira was the assistant principal at Jonathan Dayton High School for many years, where he .
Credits: Higgins and Bonner/Matthew Kass
By MATTHEW KASS, EDITOR
January 22, 2021 at 2:23 AM
SPRINGFIELD, NJ Local residents are mourning the loss of former Jonathan Dayton High School Assistant Principal Manuel Pereira, who passed away on Jan. 17.
Pereira, 78, a Westfield resident, was born on April 26, 1942, in Palmerton, Pennsylvania. He met his wife Elaine in 1963, marrying her in 1966. They lived in Roselle Park for a time, before moving to Westfield in 1969. While living in Westfield, they raised their three children, Lynn Nicusanti, Christine Sliwinski and Jeffrey Pereira.
He was “ebullient,” “effervescent,” maybe a bit “childish,” friends said. The seizures that he had were the penalty of a past life he was trying to renounce. His new path brought him into a circle of friends from the congregants of his church to the community volunteers who spent years trying to bring him indoors.
Those friends gathered Sunday in a sliver of a park on Los Feliz Boulevard to recall the life of Jeffrey Pereira, 54, who died Friday in his encampment nearby on the banks of the L.A. River.
Pereira was one of the more than 1,200 people who died on the streets of Los Angeles in 2020. Unlike so many, he was neither unknown nor alone.