Anne Corcoran Scully, teacher, artist, dies

Anne Corcoran Scully, a beloved schoolteacher, artist and community volunteer who devoted her later years to helping seniors stay independent and connected to their community, died Monday at her Stony Brook home. She was 85.

A lifelong educator who also taught watercolor painting classes for the Town of Brookhaven, Scully made an indelible impression on generations of Smithtown kindergartners, her family said.

After retirement, she devoted much of her energy to helping the aged. Scully served as vice president of Elder Share, a nonprofit that provided shared housing for elderly people unable to live on their own. She also set up recreational and social groups for homebound seniors, driving many of them to meetings herself.

"She touched thousands and thousands of lives with her kindness and caring," said her son, Peter Scully, 52, of Stony Brook, regional director for the state Department of Environmental Conservation. "She did a career pivot, from serving the youngest to the oldest."

She grew up in Flushing, Queens, during the Depression and attended Dominican Academy in Manhattan as a scholarship student. She later earned teaching degrees at Fordham and Columbia universities, and began teaching kindergarten in 1950 in Long Island City.

She married Michael Scully in 1955. The pair divorced when her three sons were young, and she relocated to Smithtown, where her parents had moved after retirement. Juggling work and motherhood, she taught kindergarten at Dogwood and Meadow Glen elementary schools.

"She taught me to see the good in things; to notice the beautiful things in life. To her, that was serving other people," said her youngest son, James Scully, 50, of Miller Place.

Scully retired in 1980 and plunged herself into community work. Her devotion to others could be exasperating, her sons said. Gifts intended for Scully -- a set of knives or a bread maker -- would disappear from her kitchen, bound for the less fortunate.

"I look back on it now, and that's the thing I was most proud of," James Scully said.

When her own health declined, following a stroke last year and a long struggle with chronic lung disease that left her largely homebound, Scully stayed in touch with her flock through phone calls. She taught herself to paint lefthanded -- the stroke had limited mobility on her right side -- and sent personalized greeting cards to friends and family.

"She was ministering to people up until she died," said Peter Scully.

Scully is also survived by her brother, John P. Corcoran of Sayville; another son, Sean Scully of Hubert, N.C.; five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will celebrated 11 a.m. Friday, at St. James Roman Catholic Church in Setauket. A memorial is planned for 2 p.m. Aug. 14 at Neighborhood House in Setauket.