by JoAnne Young
This will be a very personal
obituary. I have known
Martha since I was a student
at Stony Brook over 35 years
ago. On the same day that I
was lying in a hospital bed
being treated for a clot,
Martha was on vacation in
Peru dying from one.
Although she was only 6
years older than I, in those
days when the saying was
that you could not trust
anyone over 30, as an SBU
Ph.D., wife of a faculty
member, I viewed her as my
elder and mentor. As we aged
together, she became a
friend and confident - and
always a mentor. We could go
for a year without seeing
each other and then be
involved in something
together and see each other
daily. We argued as much as
we agreed, both stubborn and
opinionated, but underneath
our core values so much the
same we would always remain
friends. She will be sorely
missed.
Her Memorial Service will be
this Thursday, April 17th,
at 7pm in the Setauket
Neighborhood House. If you
need directions you did not
know Martha well enough to
come - it is the hangout of
the local Democratic Party
of which Martha was a Grand
Dame and her husband, ITP
Professor Barry McCoy, a
Kingpin. I am laughing as I
say that thinking of the
days when the McCoy basement
campaign headquarters was
turning out the vote - but
the truth is they were so
successful that national
politicos far and wide came
to them for advice and help.
And locally they came for
more than that. Young high
school students were
campaign workers and their
idealism and energy were put
to good use as they spent
each day during election
seasons at the McCoys. One
of them, Ward Pond, wrote a
touching blog about those
days when as a teenager
Martha validated who he was
with a simple introduction.
No longer just the son of
SBU's Executive Vice
President, Dad and Mom were
publicly relegated to the
reverse role as "Ward's
parents."
And they came for her food,
and I do not mean the
spaghetti Ward talks about.
Martha was renowned for her
Peking duck, which she made
in quantity for political
fundraisers. Days of work,
blowing the skin away from
the fat so that it would
melt away leaving the skin
crisp and the meat moist,
served on steamed rolls with
scallions and hoisin sauce.
I drool thinking of it.
But there were lots of
things Martha did that most
people don't even know
about. Not the things that
were publicized when she and
Barry were named Man and
Woman of the Year by The
Village Times. Not the
political high points Rick
Brand of Newsday
describes below. These are
two quiet ones for the Asian
American community.
- She was one of the first
to write a letter to
President Kenny asking for
Asian American Studies at
Stony Brook. As an SBU
alumna, Trustee at SUNY
Farmingdale, wife of a
distinguished faculty
member, she hoped her voice
would carry some weight.
When you are involved in
politics, by default you
have to know history. Martha
may have had her Ph.D. in
mathematical physics, but
she knew history and was
appalled by how little
Americans knew of their own.
Asians were not recent
immigrants through their own
choice, but had been denied
entry through laws like the
Chinese Exclusion Act. Until
WWII when China became our
ally, and Japanese Americans
became the enemy instead and
were put in concentration
camps, Chinese were
categorized along with
prostitutes and the mentally
ill and only 100 scholars
per year were allowed to
come to this land where "all
men are created equal." To
understand how and why the
world views us today, we
need to know how we treated
the rest of the world. It
was not always good.
- When the students in CASB
asked for my help to put
together a Shi Ming Hu
Scholarship to honor their
advisor of over 25 years,
the first person I went to
was Martha. You are the
expert at this I said, where
do I start and what do I do.
Thirty years later she was
still mentoring, but this
time in exchange for her
name as a committee member,
she demanded payback. There
could not just be a
scholarship for student
leaders (mine and CASB's
choice), or for a student in
Chinese Studies (Hu's
husband's and daughter's
choice), but one that simply
made it more possible for a
bright student to afford
Stony Brook. So when I went
to Advancement it was to
raise money for three
scholarships - and the last
was Martha's - to an
entering freshmen based
solely upon academic
standing AND financial need.
And with it, Martha made her
first donation to Stony
Brook!
The following urls will give
you a flavor of Martha. None
of us, however, can do her
justice. Hers was a life
lived fighting for justice -
and hopefully those whom she
and Barry inspired will
continue to be ripples
carrying her legacy onward.
Farewell Martha. You lived a
good life. You made life
good for others. No one
could ask for more.
Ward Pond's Blog:
http://blogs.technet.com/wardpond/archive/2008/04/09/r-i-p-tun-hsu-martha-mccoy-and-thank-you.aspx
Grassroots Organizer's Death
Mourned
Rick Brand, Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/sunday/longisland/ny-popol5640143apr06,0,6232697.column
The Shi-Ming Hu Scholarships
http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/clubs/educasia/ShiMingHu/
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