Susan McCarthy of Springs “was a maker and a grower,” wrote her son, Brion McCarthy of Baltimore. “She dabbled in paints and watercolors her whole life, was highly competent with all forms of knitting and crochet needles, and she was a perfectionist with needle and thread.”
She also had a green thumb, filling her home with plants and landscaping her garden, and was “so passionate about food that eventually she taught cooking classes out of her home at night.”
Mrs. McCarthy, who was 87, died in the company of friends and caregivers on May 30 at the Westhampton Care Center. The cause was related to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and renal failure.
She was born Sue Anne Geisler at Southampton Hospital on June 4, 1935, the second daughter of Franklin Geisler and the former Eleanor Miller. Her father died unexpectedly in 1940 and she and her sister, Barbara, lived for a time at the school of the Sacred Heart of Mary in Sag Harbor. When her mother remarried, to James Langone, the sisters returned to Southampton. She graduated from Southampton High School in 1953.
Not long after, she followed her sister to Manhattan, “where they lived for a time in the Barbizon Hotel, and where they each enjoyed the culture of the time and found their future husbands,” her son wrote. In 1964 she married Joseph A. McCarthy Jr., a lyricist. “They quickly ensconced themselves at his family farm in Saratoga County; the home she said she loved most for the rest of her life.”
They had two children “in quick succession,” first a son and then a daughter, and raised them there. When their son was of school age, they “returned to Manhattan, leaving their daughter in the care of a facility for children with severe disabilities.”
When Mr. McCarthy died in 1975, Mrs. McCarthy returned to the South Fork, eventually settling in Springs. “Here she began a long career in bookkeeping and office management, working at LeMans in Southampton, managing the Devon Yacht Club, and eventually spending her last working years in the office at Harbor Marina,” her son wrote.
“She loved her people and her community, and she found ways to use her skills to give back where she could,” he said. “In the ’70s, she was a director for Boy Scouts of America, helping administrate the local Springs troop. She threw her seamstress skills into costuming for many productions” by the Community Theater Company, and later in life served as a member of the Ladies Village Improvement Society.
In addition to her son, Mrs. McCarthy is survived by her daughter, Parnell McCarthy of Glens Falls, N.Y., her sister, Barbara Cary of Marlboro, N.J., and by two granddaughters and four nieces and nephews.
A memorial service will be held at the Brockett Funeral Home in Southampton on July 15 at 1 p.m., “where stories of her life can be shared,” her son wrote.
