Irene A. King, 73
Irene King followed in the footsteps of her father, a captain in the New York City Police Department, and a sister, who became an N.Y.P.D. detective, by joining the force in 1967. During 16 years with the department, she worked undercover and made more than 400 arrests.
Mrs. King, who lived at Lazy Point in Amagansett, died on Aug. 17 at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care in Quiogue. She had been ill about four months and died from complications of sepsis, her family said. She was 73.
She and her sister, who were among the first wave of female officers, wrote a novel called “She’s a Cop, Isn’t She?” Based, loosely, on their experiences as women in a predominantly male force, the book was published in 1975.
“She was my superhero,” her daughter, Amy King of Springs, said. “I can’t think of a better way to describe her. She was tough on herself and others, but she had a big heart. And, she never quit.”
During her whole life, she spent summers in Amagansett. Her parents began visiting the South Fork in the early 1930s and by 1945 had a house at Lazy Point. Family friends who lived next door left their house to Mrs. King’s parents, and she inherited it in 1982.
Born Irene Alice Markloff in New York City on July 8, 1943, her parents were Charles J. Markloff and the former Alice Thurman. She grew up in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx. She and her husband, Robert J. King, a fellow police officer, met while on the job. They were married on Oct. 25, 1969, and lived in West Nyack and New City, N.Y., before moving to Florida. He died in 1994.
The couple moved to Spring Hill, Fla., in 1983, after she retired from the police force. She became a real estate broker and, briefly, a commercial artist. Mermaids she designed for Weeki Wachee Springs State Park and Buccanneer Bay Waterpark were sold in the gift shop there, and two 10-foot-tall murals she created hung at Cyril’s on Napeague.
In her late 40s, she decided to go back to school to study nursing, something she had wanted to do since high school. She earned an associate of science degree and registered for nursing certification from Pasco-Hernando State College in Florida. She worked as a nurse, mostly in home health care, for nearly seven years.
In 2001, she had a brain aneurysm that impaired her memory and she had to give up nursing. She moved to Painter, Va., to be closer to family, and moved to her house at Lazy Point full time in 2011.
In addition to her daughter, Mrs. King is survived by a son, Adam R. King of Amagansett and Niskayuna, N.Y., and her sister, Caryl Collins of Painter, Va. A grandson also survives.
A service will be held at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Amagansett, of which she was a member, on Sept. 24 at 11 a.m. The Rev. F. Robert Modr, the interim pastor, will officiate. Private dispersal of her ashes will follow.
Memorial donations have been suggested to East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978, or at eeh.org.