People Remembered: Jeanne Toomey

Jeanne Toomey

Jeanne Toomey, 88, a newspaper pioneer and an OPC member since 1953, died September 17 in her daughter’s home at Falmouth, Maine after a brief illness.

She started her newspaper career with the Brooklyn Eagle in 1943, and she was the paper’s first woman to cover crime. Jeanne also reported from ships arriving in New York Harbor, where she interviewed Winston Churchill. During 50 years of reporting, she worked for numerous news organizations including the New York Journal-American, AP, King Features Syndicate and newspapers in Albany, New York, Nevada and Florida.

She and her fourth husband, the late photographer Jim Gray, ran a newspaper in Calexico on the Mexican-U.S. border. Toomey wrote two books based on her career covering crime, Murder in the Hamptons and Assignment Homicide. In Connecticut, Toomey ran The Last Post Sanctuary, a non-profit shelter for more than 300 cats. She was one of the last surviving founders of the New York Press Club. “When my money ran out to finish law school, I took a job at the Brooklyn Eagle, and I never looked back,” Toomey once said. “I loved the excitement of the newsroom, the people, and everything about it.”