Philomene Asher Gates

Philomene Asher Gates of New York City and Westhampton Beach died on Tuesday, February 17. She was 90.

Born in Daytona, Florida, to Julius B. Asher and Mary Katherine Brown on March 19, 1918, she grew up in Orlando, graduating from the local high school and Florida College for Women (now Florida State University).

Upon graduating from college in 1938, she was recruited by the Orlando Sentinel to travel to Europe and the Soviet Union to report on developments there.

Although she was appalled by the war preparations in Germany, the living conditions in the Soviet Union, and the censorship of her weekly dispatches to the Sentinel, she never lost interest in political and social issues.

Moving to Washington, D.C. when she was 20, she was one of three women to enter George Washington University Law School, from which she received her law degree in 1941. She began her legal career as an attorney of general counsel in the Office of Price Administration and then moved on to the office of the chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board.

Following World War II, she and her husband, Samuel Eugene Gates, moved to New York City, where Mr. Gates joined the law firm that became Debevoise, Plimpton, Lyons and Gates (now Debevoise Plimpton). Admitted to the Bar of the State of New York, Mrs. Gates began a long legal career as a private attorney in general practice, specializing in real estate, contracts, matrimonial and custody issues and commercial problems of small businesses.

She was an active member of the Bar Association of the City of New York and was a member of the Bar Association delegation to China in 1979. She was a founder and chairman of the Women’s Division (now the Civil Division) of the Legal Aid Society.

In 1949, the couple spent the first of the 61 summers she would spend in Westhampton Beach. In 1952, they bought a home on Beach Road. In 1969, she added an adjoining lot on Aspatuck Lane, which her daughters Sharon Stearns and Kathe Williamson now own.

Mrs. Gates was active in the community of Westhampton Beach and the rest of the Hamptons. She was a member the Westhampton Country Club, where her husband was a past president, Quantuck Beach Club, the National Golf Links and the Westhampton Garden Club, as well as St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Westhampton Beach. She also served as a director of Southampton Hospital and the Greater Westhampton Association.

In 1990, Mrs. Gates’s first book, “Suddenly Alone: A Woman’s Guide to Widowhood,” was published by Harper Collins. The response to the book was greater than she had ever expected, and for many years she received letters and calls from women who claimed it had been a major source of aid and comfort as they progressed through the long recovery from the loss of a spouse. In 2001, her second book was published, a memoir titled “A Soft Rebel Yell: from Grits to Gotham.”

In 1981, after having served as its president for eight years, she became the chairman of the Girl Scouts Council of Greater New York. That same year, she was awarded an honorary degree by St. John’s University. She led the Girl Scouts as chairman for 11 years, initiating many new programs to attract a changing Girl Scout population in the city and expanding the council’s revenue with the initiation of the first corporate dinner.

Mrs. Gates was a trustee of the Florida State University Foundation and has endowed the Philomene Gates Award for Excellence in Communications there, a major communications award to encourage excellence in that field. Also an accomplished public speaker, she worked hard to ensure that the spoken arts were not lost in future generations. She established debate prizes at the Brearley, Buckley, and St. Bernard’s Schools in New York City.

She was an active member of the Cosmopolitan Club, Century Association and the Council of Foreign Relations, and a former trustee of the New York Infirmary-Beekman Downtown Hospital, The Grosvenor Neighborhood House and numerous other community organizations.

Considered by many the quintessential “grande dame,” she was known, survivors said, for her beauty, intellectual curiosity, energy, and hospitality. Dinner parties at her Beach Road house and Park Avenue apartment were legendary, they added: she entertained 94 people for sit-down, home-cooked dinners during the month of December 2008 alone. Invitations were coveted, and conversation was lively and ranged from world affairs to the latest cultural events.

In addition to her daughters, Ms. Stearns and Kathe Williamson, she is also survived by a daughter, Gilda G. Wray; eight grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.

Mrs. Gates was predeceased by her husband, Samuel, in 1979.