That... that... yeah. The only thing that may make sense of that is this: my mom grew up on LI, and they were the first Sicilian/Italian family in their town. She said before my grandparents moved there, the town was predominately Irish and German. So maybe that Northern European influence is deep there? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But there's so many Italian-Americans in NY and RI now, you'd think sauce would be the nomenclature... Tomato gravy just sounds like something I do not want.
Especially since I live in the South and am Southern - gravy and sauce are both equally awesome but should never ever be combined. Like Twizzlers and gauc.