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Former Southampton resident Jeanne Elizabeth Toomey, a 50-year newspaper reporter and one of the last surviving founders of the New York Press Club, died on September 17 at her daughter’s home in Falmouth, Maine, following a brief illness. She was 88.
Ms. Toomey, who lived and also summered in Southampton’s Gondola Gardens for much of her life, was a pioneer for women in journalism. When she started her first job at the paper in 1943 at age 21, she was the first woman to cover crime at the Brooklyn Eagle. She also covered shipping in New York Harbor, writing a column called “Harbor Lights.” On one of her voyages she met and interviewed Winston Churchill.
Throughout her long and colorful career, she worked at numerous newspapers and news operations, including the former Journal-American, Associated Press, King Features Syndicate, the Woodbridge News Tribune in New Jersey, The Knickerbocker News in Albany, The Reno Evening Gazette, and the Tahoe Chronicle. She and her late husband Jim Gray, a photographer, also ran a newspaper in Calexico on the Mexican-U.S. border.
During the 1980s, she and Mr. Gray worked together at the Sag Harbor Express, then under the leadership of their good friend, the publisher Vicky Gardiner. During the 1990s, Ms. Toomey published two books based on her career covering crime: “Murder in the Hamptons,” and “Assignment Homicide.” She also worked in public relations and was a member of the Newswomen’s Club of New York, The Society of the Silurians, and the Overseas Press Club in New York City.
Born in New York City on August 22, 1921, to Anna Margaret Jeannette O’Grady and Edward Toomey, a pharmacist who later moved the family out to Long Island, where he owned pharmacies in Malverne and Long Beach. She graduated from Long Beach High School and attended Hofstra University and later Fordham Law School.
According to her friend Debbie Tuma, she was fond of pointing out that “when my money ran out to finish law school, I took a job at the Brooklyn Eagle, and I never looked back. I loved the excitement of the newsroom, the people, and everything about it.” She later earned a degree from Southampton College.
After a brief first marriage, she met her second husband, Deputy Chief Peter Terranova of the New York Police Department, while covering crime scenes, and the couple had two children. Following a divorce, she met her third husband, Charles Ward, and moved with him to Reno and Lake Tahoe, where she continued to work.
Following another divorce, she met her fourth husband, Jim Gray, in Florida while working for a paper in Orlando. They moved back to her home in Southampton, and both worked for the Sag Harbor Express until 1989, when they moved to Falls Village, Connecticut, to run the Last Post Sanctuary, a non-profit shelter for more than 300 cats.
“My mother’s vocation was journalism, and she was one of the first pioneers for women in this male-dominated field,” said Ms. Toomey’s daughter, Sheila Terranova Beasley, of Falmouth, Maine. “But her avocation, and lifelong passion, was animals.”
On the maiden voyage of the S.S. United States, from New York to England, Ms. Toomey had met Pegeen and Ed Fitzgerald, talk show hosts at WOR Radio, in the ship’s kennel. Mrs. Fitzgerald was the founder of the Last Post Sanctuary, and when she died she left Ms. Toomey in charge as director of the 44-acre facility. She ran the shelter from 1989 until 2007, when she retired at the age of 86 to live with Ms. Beasley in Maine.
In addition to her daughter, she is survived by three grandchildren, Siobhan, Jess and Brian Beasley, all of Maine. She was predeceased by her husband, Jim Gray, and a son, Peter Terranova.
The family is planning a memorial service and interment at Holy Rood Cemetery in Westbury for a later date.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations to the Newswomen’s Club of New York, c/o Anne O’Hare McCormick Journalism Scholarship Fund, 2nd Floor, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY 10003 would be appreciated by the family.
on Sep 22, 2009