Journalist, restaurateur Tammy Brittingham succumbs to cancer
A friend, Tamra Starr Hopkins Brittingham, died in her Lewes Beach home Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2010, after a long illness. During her 57 years, Tammy built a legacy as a journalist, business executive, entrepreneur, civic leader, philanthropist, wife, mother and a proud native of Sussex County.
| Remembrances from Tammy Brittingham’s friends: |
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• Lifelong family friend Joe Hudson, of Lewes, who was instrumental in Tammy’s life-changing AFS year in Australia: “Tammy was exceptional, a hard worker and a leader, and an exceptional businesswoman.”
• Jim Flood, competitor at the Dover Post: “Even though we recognized the competitive rivalry, we also knew that if the other company had an equipment breakdown or other problem that the first place to look for help was right across town. There were instances when that happened. It’s part of the special camaraderie in the newspaper field.” • Dolly Ingram of Dover: “Tammy left a vast inheritance. And I don’t mean money, but fabulous, funny, great memories filled with her sound of laughter and her way of speaking from the heart. Like my sister, Barbara, who died of ovarian cancer, they both had such very strong positive attitudes. In a quiet, deep place in my heart, I know Tammy is one of the beautiful bright stars that shine in the night sky next to my sister.” • Mike Parkowski, Dover attorney: “Tammy was a remarkable woman. She would not compromise her principles in the face of any adversity. Tammy had a great sense of humor, seeing the ironies in everything. She also didn’t tolerate hypocrisy.” • Judith Roales, mentor and fellow investigative journalist with a reputation for fearlessness remembers “long evenings of conversation over a bottle - or two or three - of wine. And always finding a reason to laugh about it all. She was a sister and a daughter and a mother, as needed. I hope I was the same for her.” • Chip Scanlan, former State News reporter and Columbia University School of Journalism writing coach: “I was blessed to be Tammy’s friend for 35 years. Tammy was a superb journalist with a Rolodex of sources and a built-in b.s. detector that fueled her disdain for political corruption and other outrages that she unveiled in the pages of the Delaware State News. She was fearless.” • Wanda Ford-Waring, Independent Newspapers colleague: “Tammy was a great boss. She seems to always have an insight into someone’s true ability, and she helped to bring that out. However, the experience that will be ever present in my mind is our New York trip prior to Tammy’s nuptials. We stayed at the Park Avenue hotel and shopped till we dropped. It was on that trip Tammy pinned me with my alter ego, Rene. After two chocolate martinis at a restaurant in Tribeca, I began talking endlessly. After that trip, Tammy would often say, the Rene side needs to come out now.” • Fellow journalist Gwen Guerke: “Tammy was a role model when it came to her battle against ovarian cancer. She reacted with strength, dignity and courage. Even in her final days, she was seeking more information, educating herself and taking charge, as best she was able, of her own destiny.” • Prof. Dr. Reinhard Kurth, generally described in the press as Germany’s chief medical officer and a friend for 30 years, recalled Tammy’s visit to East Germany just after the fall of the Berlin Wall: “Tammy received a Communist stamp into her passport, and she was very curious to investigate all the border enforcements, the behavior of the people. She communicated with the locals and the border guards intensely and without fear.” |
But for those who knew Tammy, their remembrances aren’t titles or roles. They are personal qualities: courage, character, principle, warmth, compassion, intelligence, inclusiveness, humor, flair, joie de vivre. She touched lives of family and friends, of course, but also of many people she had never met. Hers was a life of noble causes - the people’s right to know, women’s rights, building better communities.
And when Tammy was stricken with ovarian cancer, her response was to use her personal crisis as an opportunity to help others by starting The Starrlight Fund to raise money for ovarian cancer victims in Kent and Sussex counties who need assistance in making ends meet. Those asked to share their recollections sounded the same theme.
Tammy made them feel special and respected. Each enjoyed the titillation of laughter and the spark of ideas. Each admired Tammy’s courage even in the face of death. And each became a lifelong friend. That practice of acquiring friends, in some ways, began on the Australian island of Tasmania in 1969. There, as an exchange student, Tammy met Julia and Graeme Edwards. They became such steadfast friends that, when Tammy suffered an infection in June in which doctors gave her a 50/50 chance of dying within 48 hours, Julie and Graeme flew from Australia to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, spending a week at her bedside.
The Cape Henlopen High School and University of Delaware graduate began her journalism career in 1975, with the Delaware State News. Stepping into a notoriously feisty newsroom, Tammy was at home from the start, writing investigative pieces that caused such a ruckus that the superintendent of Delaware State Police, Col. Irvin Smith, showed up at the office with a convoy of squad cars flashing lights. He demanded she surrender her press pass. The newspaper refused. Several years later, when Tammy needed a character reference for a Rehoboth Beach restaurant liquor license, she turned to Smith. He provided it immediately.
That restaurant was TJ’s Corner, with “T” being Tammy and “J” her partner, Jenny Lawson. The successful crepes-themed restaurant was an adventurous ride. Dover lawyer Mike Parkowski, who represented Tammy at the time, recalls an incident in which a customer tried to dodge paying a check by faking a seizure. Tammy recognized the ploy immediately, and as they carried the woman from the restaurant, she followed, wagging her finger, shouting, “You’re not going to get out of paying your bill,” Parkowski recalled.
They sold the restaurant at a nice profit, and Tammy then opened Dorian’s, an upscale gift shop in downtown Dover, a town not welcoming to such enterprises. After several years of sinking restaurant profits into Dorian’s, Tammy closed shop and returned home to journalism in 1987, starting the part of her career that most remember.
For many, this period defined her career. It was from there that she became involved in so many civic activities. And it was there that she met her husband, fellow journalist Mike Pelrine. Tammy returned as managing editor of the Delaware State News. By 1993, she was publisher and regional president. In 2003, Tammy was promoted to president of parent Independent Newspapers Inc. She later held the posts of director of corporate development and publisher of the Delmarva weeklies for Independent.
Tammy also played a national role in the newspaper industry, chairing the Group Executives Conference of the Inland Press Association, serving on the board of the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association and the board of PAGE, the buying cooperative of 1,600 independently owned newspapers, a position she continued to hold.
In addition to the journalism awards she and her newspapers won, Tammy took on the mantle of civic leader. She became just the second woman in Delaware to join the Rotary, later serving as a director of the Capital City Club. Tammy was vice chairwoman of the Delaware Commission for Women, chaired the Delaware Bar Bench Media Conference and the Delaware Sunshine Law Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists, served on the Greater Dover Committee and the board of the Schwartz Center for the Arts.
And in one of her lighter but favorite accomplishments, she initiated the New Year’s Eve ball drop at Dover’s First Night celebration. Later, Tammy retuned to her Sussex County roots, moving full-time with husband Mike and son Eban into their house on Lewes Beach. Tammy resumed the community journalism she loved by taking charge of Independent’s Sussex weeklies, while Mike and Eban opened award-winning Béseme, a downtown Lewes bistro-type restaurant specializing in distinctive and healthy menu items.
Then, in 2006, Tammy learned she had ovarian cancer. She met the new circumstance as she did with all things - straight on, clear-headed, courageously and with humor. There was no wig or hat for Tammy when she lost her hair to chemotherapy. She displayed her bare head as a badge of honor. She sought out the best doctors doing the most advanced research and treatment, eager to join experiments that could save other lives.
As always, Tammy was driven to learn and help. When she saw the financial devastation that many ovarian cancer victims suffered as they lost jobs and supported kids, Tammy found a way to help. She started the Starrlight Fund to raise money for them, with the signature fundraising device being elaborately designed gourmet cupcakes baked at Béseme. The fund quickly built as she raised money directly and from cupcake sales.
Soon, she was awarding grants - $5,000 at first - from the Delaware Community Foundation-managed fund. Eventually, Tammy endured several surgeries, each leaving her more debilitated than the one before until, finally, her weakened body gave out. Yet, at no time, even at the end, did Tammy express pity for herself. She remained interested in her treatment, focused on the future, and she maintained her humor.
Near her final day, Tammy asked several close friends: “Tell me what you would say if you knew you would never see me again.” That was our friend’s courageous good-bye.
Tammy was preceded in death by a daughter, Jordan, in 1985; and her father, George E. Hopkins Jr., in 2004. Tammy is survived by husband Michael Pelrine and son Eban Brittingham, both of Lewes; mother Alice Waples Hopkins of Lewes; sister Debbie Hopkins West and her husband Chip West of Gumboro; brother George E. Hopkins III and his wife Debbie of Rehoboth Beach; and numerous nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles and cousins.
Immediate services will be private. A celebration of life will be at 2 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 5, at Nassau Valley Vineyards, to which all are invited. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to The Starrlight Fund, c/o The Delaware Community Foundation, 36 The Circle, Georgetown, DE 19947.
