Lorna E. Tuthill
Longtime Southold resident Lorna E. Tuthill died March 22 at Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport. She was 93.
Lorna was born Jan. 13, 1923, in Massachusetts to E. Constance MacGray and Charles L. MacGray, M.D. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and a Master of Religious Education from Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, Mass., and attended the Boston University School of Education.
Lorna grew up in Massachusetts and Maine and lived in Hawaii from 1946 to 1948. She moved to Southold in 1951. She married Donald Tuthill in 1962.
For 22 years Lorna taught grades 5 and 6 in the Southold school district.
Lorna was a devoted and active member of First Presbyterian Church of Southold. She was ordained an elder of the Presbyterian Church in 1961. Within the Southold church she was an elder and leader, choir member and soloist, and educator. For 20 years she was a leader in Long Island Presbyterian Women; she also served with the Presbytery of Long Island. She was proud to have traveled in 1990 to Australia as a global exchange representative of Presbyterian Women of the Synod of the Northeast.
Her involvement in the Southold community and beyond was vast and varied. She was a member of both the North Fork Chorale and the Eastern Long Island Hospital Auxiliary for more than 50 years. She served as a trustee for the hospital and held membership in the Southold Historical Society, Southold Indian Museum and Friends of Southold Free Library. She and Don sponsored children in Latin America through ChildFund International and had the opportunity to meet some of them on a trip to Guatemala.
Lorna loved music and singing, and for 10 years she sang with the Berkshire Choral Institute in Sheffield, Mass. In 1997, she performed with the BCI chorus in Mondsee, Austria.
She wrote a family memoir, “Braecopse Remembered,” a reminiscence of her childhood summers spent in Kittery, Maine. She also wrote about the trip across the country she and Don took in “Cream Puff,” a four-seater Cessna Skyhawk, in 1994. Don and Lorna spent many happy days and nights on the water in the houseboat Don built, the Lorna Doone. Over the years they traveled to such places as Morocco, Yucatan, Turkey, Norway and Great Britain.
She was predeceased by Donald in 2005. She is survived by a son, Jonathan Hawkins; a stepson, Wayne Swiatocha; three sisters, Enid MacGray, Elaine MacGray Starrett and Janet MacGray; and four grandchildren. A brother and sister, twins Charles and Constance, predeceased her.
A memorial service is planned for Saturday, April 16, at noon at First Presbyterian Church. Memorial donations may be made to a charity of the donor’s choosing.
Arrangements were entrusted to DeFriest-Grattan Funeral Home in Southold.
