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Jeffrey Slonim, 56, Celebrity Reporter

Jeffrey Slonim, 56, Celebrity Reporter

May 6, 1960 - Oct.13, 2016
By
Star Staff

Jeffrey Slonim of New York City and East Hampton, a journalist and reporter who started his prolific career at Interview magazine, died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York on Oct. 13 as the result of a fall. He was 56 years old.

Mr. Slonim joined the staff of Interview in 1984, when Andy Warhol was its editor, and continued there until 2012 as a contributing editor and society editor, among other duties. He also worked for many years for Allure and Hamptons magazine, doing what is referred to as “red-carpet” or celebrity reporting. For Allure, he created “Private Eye,” a back-page spread featuring subjects answering a range of questions from “Do you talk to people on planes?” to “Do you own anything you are wearing?” 

He was “The Inquisitive Guest” for Architectural Digest and the writer behind “Diddy Runs the City” for The New York Post, a marathon training diary of Sean Combs, the hip-hop entrepreneur. He also wrote for People, Condé Nast Traveler, and Gotham magazines. 

At Allure he used his skills as a photo researcher to produce “photo essays that combined vintage and contemporary photos of celebrities and their costumes,” long before online archives made such work easier, according to his family.

“His offbeat approach — now widespread in celebrity coverage — was less about gossip than about giving his readers a glimpse of stars’ real lives,” friends and family wrote in his obituary material. 

Born on May 6, 1960, in Kittery, Me., Mr. Slonim was one of four children of Charles E. Slonim and the former Louise Wiener. His mother, who lives in Fairfax, Va., and his siblings, Anne Rafal of Fairfax, Va., Amy Slonim of Bellingham, Wash., and Hunt Slonem of New York City, a painter who spells the surname differently, survive. His father died in 2014.

Mr. Slonim’s father, a career naval officer and submarine captain, moved around a good deal when his children were young, and the family lived in Honolulu, Bremerton, Wash., Washington, D.C., Newport, R.I., and, ultimately, after his retirement in Manassas, Va., where Mr. Slonim graduated from J.E.B. Stuart High School. He was Key Club president in high school and also rowed crew. 

Mr. Slonim graduated in 1982 from Yale University with a B.A. in political philosophy and economics.

As skilled as he was at chronicling celebrity events, he was also adept at putting on parties and fund-raisers, a book party to raise money for American Ballet Theater in 2009 and a fund-raiser for victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 among them.

In August 1995, Mr. Slonim was married to Fiona Moore. She survives, as do their two sons, Finbarr, 18, and Declan, 15, of New York. He is also survived by nine nieces and nephews.

Martha Moore, a freelance reporter and friend from Yale, described Mr. Slonim as “a delightful, thoughtful, erudite, and talented person who had a great sense of humor and pursued an extremely challenging profession with remarkable enthusiasm and grace. . . . And as a friend, he was a lovely person.” 

Mr. Slonim loved East Hampton. He enjoyed spending time with his family, sailing in Montauk, playing the piano, and driving his Jeep Wagoneer. “Regardless of how many celebrities he interviewed, the real rock stars in his life were Fiona and the boys,” Martha Moore said. “He was very proud of those kids.”

There will be a memorial service on Dec. 18 at 4 p.m. at the Fourth Universalist Society in New York, 160 Central Park West at 76th Street. Contributions in his name can be sent to the Jeffrey James Slonim Memorial Fund, c/o Hunt Slonem Studio, 14-B 53rd Street, Box A-8, Sixth Floor, Brooklyn 11232.

Mark J. Cohan

Mark J. Cohan

Feb. 18, 1942 - Aug. 10, 2016
By
Star Staff

Word has been received here of the death on Aug. 10 of Mark Jeffrey Cohan of Manhattan and East Hampton. Mr. Cohan, who was 74, had been diagnosed with prostate cancer not long ago.

His family said his happiest days were spent in East Hampton, at Main Beach, out for dinner at one of the village’s noted restaurants, by the bar at Rowdy Hall, or by the pool behind his house in Northwest. He also enjoyed traveling, reading, and politics, they said. 

Mr. Cohan was born in Brooklyn on Feb. 18, 1942, to Arnold Cohan and the former Edna Fleischman. He grew up in New Rochelle, N.Y., and graduated from New Rochelle High School before attending Boston University, where he met the former Wendy Platt, who was two years behind him. They were married on July 8, 1965.

The couple lived first in Manhattan, then in Westchester, and then again in Manhattan. Over the years, they made the East End a second home, renting in Quogue before discovering East Hampton. It was not just a summer escape, their son Ethan Cohan said, it was weekends year round. “All that mattered was, it was Friday afternoon.” At the time of Mr. Cohan’s death, he and his wife had been transitioning to live here full time.

Mr. Cohan worked briefly in the publishing business, before turning his attention to the world of fashion. He went on to open the Jeff Cohan Showroom in the garment district, where he hosted up-and-coming designers. He was a talented businessman, said his son. Later, he founded and was co-owner of Love Quotes, Inc., a boutique designer scarf and accessory company. He also represented designers here in East Hampton, placing their items in shops on Main Street and Newtown Lane.

Besides his wife and his son Ethan, who lives in Los Angeles, he leaves another son, Jed Cohan of Vermont. He is also survived by a brother, Jamey Cohan of Bridgehampton, and one grandchild.

Mr. Cohan, who died in Manhattan, was remembered in a recent gathering at the Almond restaurant there. Funeral services were private.

Delia Yuska

Delia Yuska

By
Star Staff

Delia Yuska, a lifelong resident of East Hampton, died on Oct. 23 at the age of 87. 

Her family said Mrs. Yuska, who was born on Nov. 13, 1928, died at home, but declined to provide further information.

Frank J. Forde

Frank J. Forde

March 24, 1926 - Sept. 8, 2016
By
Star Staff

Frank J. Forde, a native of Dublin who served in India, Egypt, and Palestine with the British Army before coming to the United States in 1950, died on Sept. 8 at Southampton Hospital at the age of 90. His death was attributed to dehydration and other natural causes.

At 18, Mr. Forde was drafted into the King’s Own Scottish Borderers. After seeing action in World War II and later serving with the military police in Palestine, he was discharged in 1948 and returned to Cheshire, in the north of England. There he met his future wife, the former Beryl Ellis, whose family had moved in 1939 from wartime London to the town where her maternal grandparents lived.

Mr. Forde arrived in the U.S. on the Britannic to meet family members in East Pittsburgh — uncles, aunts, and cousins whom he had never seen before, his father having been separated from his own parents and siblings as a child. He arranged for his fiancée to travel there in May; she was not yet 18, and his father came with her.

They went back and forth to England for the next eight or so years, finding it hard to get work in New York City, where they had moved. At some point a friend told them that a town on Long Island called East Hampton was “God’s country,” and they moved here to live in 1959.

Mrs. Forde, who survives, said her husband had worked as a kennel man for Dr. Albert Pontick, going on farm calls and assisting during surgery, when Dr. Pontick owned the East Hampton Veterinary Group with Dr. Herbert French. Later he worked for the East Hampton Town Parks Department, retiring at 70 after 25 years. 

He did not talk much about his war experiences, Mrs. Forde said, other than to tell her how different it was in the countries where he had served and how poor the people were.

Mr. Forde was born on March 24, 1926, one of five children of Andrew Forde and the former Catherine Barry. He graduated from a Catholic school in Cheshire, which is near Liverpool. He was “a wonderful man, one of a kind, a loving husband and father,” she said. “He was happy-go-lucky and never complained. He gave us his all.” She said he had no hobbies and worked 12-hour days, though he did enjoy driving, and they often went shopping at the big stores in Riverhead.

He was a member of the American Legion, attending meeting and events at the hall in Amagansett, and of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Forde is survived by two sons, Frank Forde and Barry Forde, both of East Hampton, a sister, Alice Ward of England, and three nieces and a nephew. He also leaves five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Two other sisters, Kitty Ward and Edna Walker, died before him, as did his brother, Andy Forde; a daughter, Margaret Forde, and two granddaughters, Lindsay and Breanna Forde.

The family received friends and relatives at the Yardley & Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton on Sept. 11. Mr. Forde was cremated, and his ashes were buried the following day at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton, next to his daughter, Margaret Forde; two granddaughters, Lindsay and Breanna Forde, and a nephew, Tony Forde. Loretta Walker, the wife of his nephew, said Mass at the cemetery and bagpipers played.

Louise Meybert, 95

Louise Meybert, 95

April 25, 192 - Oct. 26, 2016
By
Star Staff

Louise Meybert, who signed up at Penn Station after World War II to buy land in Montauk with her sister Anne, died at home there on Oct. 26. She was 95 years old and had been in a wheelchair for about nine years after falling on ice in her uphill driveway.

Jacqueline Beh, formerly of Montauk and now living in Islip, said she had known Ms. Meybert for 30 years. She was “a zaftig, tall, blond, and indomitable woman,” Ms. Beh said. 

Ms. Meybert was born in Brooklyn on April 25, 1921, and spent summers as a child on Fire Island with her two sisters and their parents. None of the sisters ever married.

She and Anna trained at St. Vincent’s Hospital as nurses, but gave up their prospects to take care of their younger sister, Peggy, who was born with cerebral palsy. One would work by day and the other in the evening so that their sister would have around-the-clock care. “She told me stories about being 70 and carrying Peggy out into the yard,” said Ms. Beh. “Both sisters gave up their own lives to take care of her. No husbands, few parties, no travel, and lots of sacrifices.”

The lots near the Montauk School bought in the mid-’40s were sold in the mid-’70s, when they bought a piece of land high up, with a panoramic view of the ocean, Ms. Beh said. Until they built their house, which was designed to be completely wheelchair-accessible, they had lived in Bellmore; they moved to Montauk full time in 1986.

Even when she was wheelchair-bound after clawing her way up her steep driveway the day she fell, Ms. Meybert took a trip with a friend to Germany, to Lourdes, France, to Scotland, where she visited an old beau from World War II, and to Rome, where she was photographed with Pope Francis. The photo was printed in The Star in December 2013.

Both Ms. Meybert’s sisters died before her; there are no living relatives. Funeral services were held last Thursday at St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church, where Father Thomas Murray said Mass and gave a eulogy. Burial followed at Fort Hill Cemetery in Montauk. 

Memorial contributions in her name have been suggested to St. Therese’s parish outreach, P.O. Box 5027, Montauk 11954.

 

Judith S. Seixas, 94

Judith S. Seixas, 94

By
Star Staff

Judith Sartorius Seixas, a psychologist who wrote two well-received books on the treatment of alcoholism and was a Springs summer resident since the 1950s, died on Nov. 2 at Sunrise of Weston in Weston, Mass. She was 94.

Dr. Seixas and her late husband, Dr. Frank A. Seixas, were groundbreaking advocates in the field of alcoholism. The first of three children born to Irving Sartorius and the former Edythe Carr, she was 8 when the family moved to Harrison, N.Y. She graduated from the Fieldston School, not far away in Riverdale, and from Carleton College in Minnesota, and held an M.S. in psychology from Columbia University.

 The Seixases were introduced at a dinner party by a mutual friend and married in 1946 after he returned from wartime service with the Navy. They lived in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., with their three children, who are Peter Seixas of Vancouver, Canada; Abby Seixas Horowitz of Weston, and Noah Seixas of Seattle.

Dr. Seixas wrote “Children of Alcoholism: A Survivors Manual” in 1985, and a book for young readers, “Alcoholism: What It Is, What It Does,” in 1977.

The couple’s house in Springs was on Gerard Drive, with beautiful views of Gardiner’s Bay and Accabonac Harbor. Their mother “delighted in lobster dinners,” her children said, “and skinny-dipping in Gardiner’s Bay whenever the coast was clear.” Over the years, they said, she “presided with grace and good humor as matriarch to her adult children and their families, who filled the house to overflowing for many summers.” She enjoyed chatting with local artists, Pollock and de Kooning among them, who would stop by on their way to paint at the point.

She was a cultured, educated, worldly woman who took great pride in being able to speak French with a Parisian accent, said the family, and often hosted visiting students from France, as well as the Seychelle Islands, Curacao, and the Deep South, on cultural exchanges. An accomplished flutist, she also presided over a biweekly chamber music group in the family living room in Hastings-on-Hudson.

In addition to her children, she leaves six grandchildren, one great-grandchild, a sister, Brenda Engel of Cambridge, Mass., and five half siblings.

The family has suggested that donations in Dr. Seixas’s memory be directed to the Accabonac Preservation Committee, 956 Springs-Fireplace Road, East Hampton 11937. A celebration of her life is planned for early next year.

For Jack Rivkin

For Jack Rivkin

By
Star Staff

A memorial service for Jack L. Rivkin, a longtime resident of Tyson Lane in East Hampton, will be held today 4 to 7 p.m. at the Angler’s Club of New York at 101 Broad Street in Manhattan. Mr. Rivkin, an economic research innovator in investment economics, died on Nov. 8. He was 76 years old. A full obituary will appear in future issue of The Star.

 

For Elbert Edwards

For Elbert Edwards

By
Star Staff

A memorial service for Elbert Edwards, a member of the East Hampton Village Board and a 12th-generation member of one of East Hampton’s founding families, will be held on Saturday at 11 a.m. at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church. The Rev. John Ames, the former minister of the church, will be in attendance. Light refreshments will be served in the session house following the service.

Mr. Edwards, who died last month, was a trustee of the church. In addition to longtime tenure on the village board, he was an active member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a former president of the South End Cemetery Association, a trustee of the East Hampton Historical Society, and a member of the Mayflower Society and the Lost Tribe of Accabonac.

Thomas X. Mackey, Police Lieutenant

Thomas X. Mackey, Police Lieutenant

Sept. 25, 1961 - Nov. 4, 2016
By
Star Staff

Thomas X. Mackey, a retired Sag Harbor Village police lieutenant, died on Nov. 4 at home in Bonita Springs, Fla. He was 55. The cause of death was an apparent heart attack, his brother, Chip Mackey of East Islip, said.

As the executive officer of the department, which he served for 21 years, he was its second in command. He had previously worked as a Housing Authority police officer for the New York Police Department after finishing at the police academy. He still lived in his hometown of East Islip at the time, and when he received a letter inviting him to join the Sag Harbor force, he and his father got out a map of Long Island to figure out exactly where the village was, he once recalled. 

After his retirement in 2009, he taught criminal justice and co-wrote a book. He was an adjunct professor and graduate research adviser in the forensic studies department at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers while he continued his own studies, earning a master’s degree in criminal justice from the same university in April 2012. 

He was in the midst of completing a doctorate program at Capella University and was due to present his dissertation after Thanksgiving, his brother said. 

While he excelled at police work and got great joy from helping others, he came to find that he loved academia. “He was a brainiac,” his brother said. “Where he got his solace was going into the library and doing research.” He also enjoyed teaching, and in his students he found a receptive audience. 

He was the program director of criminal forensics at Keiser University in Florida for a year. He was also the director of the mass-killer database at Florida Gulf Coast University, the largest privately held database of its kind in the world. In his role there, he conducted research on sexual serial homicide. 

“Deviance: Theories on Behaviors That Defy Social Norms,” of which he and Duane L. Dobbert were editors, was published in July 2015. He was working on a second book.

Born Thomas Xavier Mackey on Sept. 25, 1961, at Glen Cove Community Hospital, he was known as T.X. to his friends and family since he was a child. He was the youngest of three children of Charles P. Mackey and the former Miriam A. Lynch. After attending East Islip High School in 1979 and taking college classes on Long Island, he graduated from the State University at Oneonta in 1983. 

An uncle who had served in the F.B.I. spurred his interest in pursuing a career in policing, his brother said. 

Once he joined the department in Sag Harbor in May 1988, he moved up the ranks, serving as a detective, then as a sergeant, and finally as lieutenant and executive officer. He was also involved in establishing a police dive team in Sag Harbor in the early 1990s, before the Sag Harbor Fire Department took over such rescue efforts.

Colleagues said he was dedicated to the community he served — he once helped organize a youth Olympics attended by 400 children — and that he strived to make a difference in people’s lives. They recalled his interrogation skills and keen ability to read people. 

A physical fitness enthusiast, Mr. Mackey was a runner and a swimmer. While living in Sag Harbor, he swam year round in the master’s program at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter. 

He was credited with saving at least two lives in the water. Once while on duty he rescued a suicidal man who had jumped from the bridge between Sag Harbor and North Haven. While taking a jog in August 2009, he rushed into Noyac Bay and pulled an unresponsive man out of the water off Long Beach and resuscitated him.

Several times he was named the department’s officer of the year, honored at the Southampton Kiwanis Club’s annual dinner.

In addition to his brother, his two children, Liam Mackey, 24, and Sheila Mackey, 19, both of Sag Harbor, survive him. A marriage ended in divorce. He leaves two nieces and a nephew.

His parents died before him, as did a sister, Sheila Mackey, in an automobile accident in 1978. He had two cousins who were like brothers, Kyle Lynch of Springs, who survives, and Ryan Lynch, an East Hampton Town police sergeant who died in 2005. 

A wake will be held tomorrow at Frederick J. Chapey & Sons Funeral Home in East Islip from 2 to 4:30 and 7 to 9:30 p.m. A Mass will be said at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in East Islip on Saturday at 9:15 a.m. The Rev. Hugh Cannon will officiate. Mr. Mackey was cremated and will be buried at St. Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale, next to his parents and sister.

Shirley T.F. Garrett

Shirley T.F. Garrett

Nov. 24, 1935 - Oct. 16, 2016
By
Star Staff

Shirley Theodora Ford Garrett, who spent her childhood summers in Sag Harbor and retired there in 1996, died at home on Oct. 16. She was 81 and had had Parkinson’s disease for about three years.

Mrs. Garrett was close to her sister, Marian Ford Pryce of Sag Harbor, who affectionately called her “the volunteer of America” this week. She was a familiar face at the food pantry of St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Bridgehampton, the Animal Rescue Fund thrift shop, and the Retired Senior Volunteer Program, whose members look out for older people living alone. 

She also volunteered at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, calling it a way to keep “in tune with young people . . . a lively experience,” when she and Mrs. Pryce were interviewed for “Voices of Sag Harbor: A Village Remembered,” a 2007 book of more than 80 reminiscences. The two have a chapter all to themselves in the book, called “The Ford Sisters,” in which they recall their childhood summers on Liberty Street with their great-grandmother Theodosia Jordan. The sisters remembered eating a lot of fish caught by their father and grandfather, sometimes frying it up right on the beach, and picking blueberries.

Mrs. Garrett was a lay Episcopal minister at St. Ann’s, where she not only helped administer the sacrament but also read. She was also the corresponding secretary of the Eastville Historical Society and gave tours for the society of local landmarks. “I see volunteering as a way of helping others and thereby enriching my life,” she said in “Voices of Sag Harbor.”

She was born on Nov. 24, 1935, in Queens, one of three children and the second daughter of Theodore Nathaniel Ford and the former Edith Williams. She took business classes on weekends while a student at Jamaica High School in Queens and later attended Baruch College. A great traveler, she visited several countries in Europe with friends during two summer vacations; later, she and Mrs. Pryce made frequent trips to the Caribbean.

Mrs. Garrett’s first job was with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in New York City. After marrying Wendell Raymond Garrett Sr., she moved with him to Wappingers Falls, N.Y., where she worked for IBM. The company transferred her to Boulder, Colo., just about when the Garretts divorced, and she moved to Boulder with their son, Wendell Garrett Jr., who was about 10. She became an export analyst for IBM, making sure that its computers ordered by other countries met all shipping and procedural regulations and that her counterpart at the other end was there to receive the shipment. This gave her contacts all over the world, especially in Italy, many of whom stayed in touch with her for the rest of her life.

The Rev. Timothy Lewis officiated at a memorial Mass held at St. Ann’s on Saturday, and blessed her ashes, which are with her sister and will be dispersed at a later date. In addition to her sister and her son, both of Sag Harbor, Mrs. Garrett is survived by a brother, Theodore Ford of Queens, and two grandchildren.

The family has suggested donations in her memory for the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, 1359 Broadway, Suite 1509, New York 10018, or the Eastville Community Historical Society, P.O. Box 2036, Sag Harbor 11963.