Jane Bishop Seabury Of Southampton And Bridgehampton Dies February 6

Jane Bishop Seabury of Southampton, and formally of Bridgehampton, died on February 6 of natural causes. She was 98.

She was born on June 19, 1923 in Southampton to Alma Jagger Bishop and William Wooley Bishop, in a family line that reached back 10 generations to the founding of Southampton. She grew up there, graduated from the Southampton High School and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from Mount Holyoke College. Later, she earned a master’s degree in library science from C.W. Post College, followed by completing academic requirements for a Ph.D., but not the dissertation.

She married Donald Sheffield Seabury of Bridgehampton in 1948. They were married for 70 years before he died in 2018. They lived in the Bridgehampton area for most of their marriage and spent many wonderful summers on Mount Desert Island in Maine.

For her first job, she was recruited by the Department of Defense in Washington, D.C., as a Pacific Theater code breaker during WWII. Following that, she worked for the Federal Reserve in New York City.

After her marriage, she moved to Bridgehampton and served as a social worker for the New York State Department of Social Services. After studying library science, she worked as a librarian in schools in Southampton, Sag Harbor and East Hampton.

She was passionate about people, nature, gardening, education, art, travel, and service to others, according to her family. She hiked, biked, swam and cross country skied. She was a founding member of the Hampton Day School, studied garden design and planted gardens wherever she lived, knew the name of every plant in the forest and how to survive in the wild, traveled extensively and wherever she went was fascinated by the people she met, developing vast webs of friendship and interconnectedness.

Being of service to others in its many forms was a founding principle in her life, according to her family. She served on the school boards of both the Bridgehampton School and the Hampton Day School and served as both a deacon and a trustee of the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church. She was a Girl Scout leader, Sunday school teacher, and a mentor to many younger people. She always had the energy to cook for ailing friends, visit the ill and run errands for shut ins.

She was predeceased by her parents William and Alma Bishop; her husband Donald; and granddaughter, Aimee. She is survived by her children Marilyn and Peter; two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

A memorial service will be announced at a later date.