Mary G. Thompson of Westhampton Beach died on April 1, 2017, at Southampton Hospital. She was 97.
Born on Halloween 1919 in New York City on 63rd Street, the current site of Lincoln Center, to Michael and Nora Walsh, she attended St. Paul the Apostle School and Blessed Sacrament High School. She was a longtime resident of Forest Hills and a faithful member of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, for which she knitted baby hats for St. John’s Hospital and made bed pads for St. Rose’s Home for the terminally ill. The family moved to the Westhampton area in 1956 and had a lifelong love affair with the beach, the sun, and the village.
Ms. Thompson was a volunteer at the Hospice Thrift Shop, where she enjoyed the bargains but the people even more. She worked for GMAC for most of her life, but found time to travel and see the world. Travel was a time for family and friends and doing unexpected things—such as a helicopter ride over the Great Barrier Reef because she didn’t want to get her hair wet, letting a scorpion crawl up her arm at the Singapore Zoo and riding an elephant in Thailand.
She was predeceased by her older brother, Reverend Richard Walsh, C.S.P.; and her younger sister, Anne Marie Morris. She is survived by a daughter, Maureen Lawrence and husband George Lawrence; and a granddaughter, Julie Lawrence, who was her co-conspirator, and had to learn “monkey see, monkey do ... monkey get in trouble too,” survivors said.
Funeral arrangements were under the direction of the Follett & Werner Funeral Home in Westhampton Beach.
Memorial donations may be made to Little Flower Children’s Services, 2450 North Wading River Road, Wading River, NY 11792, or Immaculate Conception Food Pantry, 580 Main Street, Westhampton Beach, NY 11978.