2022 HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our readers
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For BrEAKING
NEWS
HERALD 2021
go to liherald.com
YEAR IN REVIEW
$1.00
What’s
INSIDE INSIDE
WANTAGH
By Mallory Wilson
DECEMBER 30, 2021 - JANuARY 5, 2022
VOl. 70 NO. 1
Decades of motherhood
mwilson@liherald.com
D Courtesy John Scalesi xx/Herald
xxracist text message sparked a A protest in Wantagh. page 0
page 10
Courtesy Darlene Capobianco xx/Herald
Wantagh native Andrew Capobianco xx nabbed silver at the Olympics. page 0
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Kate Nalepinski/Herald xx/Herald
An outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease xx
hit the Wantagh-Levittown border. page 0
page 15
eirdre Trumpy, 39, describes her mother, Pat Shea, as passionate, compassionate and strong. Given Shea’s years of hard work and dedication to the Wantaghbased organization Mommas House, which provides a safe place for pregnant women and young mothers, ages 18 to 24 and their babies, the description is clearly fitting. The organization, which was founded by Shea in 1986, recently celebrated its 35th anniversary — and having assisted more than 1,000 mothers and babies across Nassau County. Mommas House offers transitional housing, emergency shelters and permanent housing services. It has four motherchild transitional residences in Glen Cove and Jericho and two in Hempstead, as well as a permanent home in East Massapequa. “I hold mothers in high esteem,” Shea said when asked why she chose to focus on helping mothers in need. “I know how difficult it is to be a mother. Even in a position where you have people supporting you, it’s difficult.” Helping those in need is just what Shea does, Trumpy said. And for her untiring efforts, the Herald is proud to name her its 2021 person of the year. Shea, 80, grew up in Bellerose, Queens, before moving to suburban Long Island when she was a senior at St. John’s University. She studied high school math education there, but after a mission trip to Mexico that she took with her church right after she graduated, she knew she wanted to head in a different direction. “After that experience in Mexico, I decided that was really where I was called to be,” Shea recalled. “Something in helping people more directly.” After getting a job at Angel Guardian Home, an orphanage in Brooklyn, she decided to pursue a master’s in social work at Fordham University, which she
HERALD PERSON OF THE YEAR
DeirDre TruMpy
i ‘
hold mothers in high esteem.’ paT Shea Founder, Mommas House
completed in 1965. She worked at the orphanage until 1969, when she gave birth to her first son. In 1970 Shea founded the Wantagh-based Birthright of Nassau/
Suffolk, which helped women facing unplanned pregnancies. This was never a paid position. She and her late husband, Thomas, eventually settled in Massapequa, where they raised five children: the late Dillon Shea, Keara Bloom, Meaghan Shea, Siobhan Anderson and Trumpy, the youngest. The idea for Mommas House came to Shea after a heart-wrenching experience in 1984. As a Birthright of Nassau/Suffolk volunteer she was trying to find housing for a young homeless woman who had aged out of foster care and now found herself pregnant. The woman eventually found a place for herself and her baby to stay, but it was an unlivable house. She rented a room barely big enough for a bed — let alone a crib — in a filthy home with no hot water occupied by nine men, most of whom had recently been discharged from mental institutions or were drug addicts or alcoholics. Shea had offered the woman a room in her house, but she refused, and a few weeks later, when the woman asked Shea to watch her newborn son while she went to the doctor, Shea didn’t hesitate to agree. Shea was disgusted that there weren’t any places for people like this woman to live, and decided that something needed to be done. The first Mommas House was a home that a local businessman named Joe Haley purchased in Wantagh in 1986, and allowed Shea to house pregnant women in need there. “I asked everyone I knew to pray for a house,” Shea said.“I had them start praying for me to find a house, and Joe was in a prayer group and wanted to help us. So because of that, I knew that this is what we Continued on page 4 Courtesy Deirdre Trumpy
Shea recently celebrated helping more than 1,000 mothers and babies across Nassau County.