Patricia Ann (McNamara) Legasey

Patricia Ann (McNamara) Legasey, 80, passed away peacefully on June 19 at her home on Kiawah Island after a courageous battle with a debilitating illness. She will be sorely missed by all who knew and loved her. Tricia was born in Malden, Massachusetts on November 7, 1945, the second child of six, and oldest daughter of four, of the late Edward J. McNamara and Pauline I. (Rago) McNamara. As the oldest daughter of an Italian mother, she learned how to cook and take care of her younger siblings at an early age. Throughout her life, her cooking skills were legendary.

Like many of the early boomer generation in the greater Boston area, Tricia attended parochial schools. She graduated from Immaculate Conception elementary school and Girls Catholic High School (Malden Catholic). After high school, Tricia graduated from the Chandler School for Women in Boston, MA, where she prepared to be a professional executive assistant. While a senior in high school, she met and began to date a fellow senior at the boys’ Catholic high school across the street from the girls’ school. Four years later, she married that young man, Ted Legasey, on June 24, 1967, two weeks after he graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy. During the four years while Ted was in Colorado at the Academy, Tricia remained in Malden and became Ted’s mother’s best friend. In their nearly 59 years of marriage, Ted often joked that Tricia’s relationship with his mother meant he didn’t stand a chance.

In the long-ago days before the ubiquity of desktop computers and other forms of office automation, Tricia had mastered the skills so valuable to busy executives. She fluently used shorthand to take oral dictation; she flawlessly typed over 100 words per minute; she effortlessly managed meetings, documents, files, schedules, travel, expense reports, and all the other by-products of an executive’s job. And she was always there to lend a helping hand to her co-workers. Tricia worked as a Legal secretary in Boston after her graduation from Chandler. After their wedding, Ted’s first assignment as an Air Force officer was to graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where Tricia worked as the executive assistant to the Dean of the University’s Population Studies Center. When Ted completed graduate school two years later, he was assigned to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. There, Tricia worked as the executive assistant to a key executive of Mead Data Central, which served as an emerging technologies incubator for the Mead Paper Company. In their first five years of marriage, Tricia was very proud of the fact that she always earned a better income than her Masters-degreed husband. But all that was to change when their son Brian entered the family in 1972.

Notwithstanding her early professional successes, Tricia’s aspiration was to be a full-time Mom. So, Tricia ended her working career outside the home. For the rest of her life—whether it was when Ted dragged her kicking and screaming to the godforsaken high desert of southern California for his final three years on active duty at the Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, or the 25 years in the Washington, DC area where Ted joined his mentor Ernst Volgenau to create and build SRA International into a great company, or the 20 plus years of retirement on Kiawah Island as part of the greater Charleston community—Tricia exerted behind the scenes energy and influence to support her family, Ted’s professional aspirations, and their philanthropic priorities. She was intelligent, well-read, politically astute, and had an uncanny ability to quickly take the measure of a person. She could spot a phony in an instant, and her dry wit endeared her to all who knew her well. Though Tricia was shy by nature, and never comfortable in the limelight, her influence was always evident in all that the Legasey family touched. She loved all in the extended Legasey-McNamara family; she cherished her close friends; and she adored every one of her beloved German Shepherd dogs.

Tricia was preceded in death by her parents and grandparents, her sister Rosemarie, her nephew Ted McNamara, her sisters-in-law Roberta McNamara and Margie McNamara, her brothers-in-law Bob Hayes and Alan Marlow, her half-brother-in-law Lee Legasey, and his wife Patti. She is survived by her husband and best friend Ted Legasey; her son Brian Legasey (Lisa McCormick) of Sterling, VA; her brother Ed McNamara (Judy Evans) of Beverly, MA; sister Kathy Hayes of North Reading, MA; brother Steve McNamara of Reading, MA; sister Polly Wyman (Mark) of Hampton, NH; brothers-in-law John Legasey of Salem, MA and Rob Legasey (Nancy) of Hollywood, SC; sister-in-law Mary Jane Marlow of Henderson, NV; her BFF since Kindergarten Eileen Herbert Hugo (Charlie) of Stoneham, MA; her longtime Kiawah helpmate and close friend Sharona Williams McNiesh (Chris) of North Charleston, SC; her very special niece Denise Swansburg Foote (Doug) of Minnetrista, MN; her godchildren nephew Stephen Zizza of Peabody, MA, niece Kristin Marlow Røyseland (Halstein) of Henderson, NV and great-nephew Keegan Foote of Minnetrista, MN. And many more wonderful cousins, nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews.

Arrangements are being handled by J. Henry Stuhr, Inc. West Ashley Chapel. A celebration of her life will be held at Stuhr’s on Wednesday, July 1, 2026 from 4:00 pm until 6:00 pm; another celebration of her life will be held in the Boston area on a later date; cremains will be interred in the Columbarium at the Memorial Pavilion at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

In lieu of flowers, please consider making a contribution in Tricia’s memory to one of her favorite nonprofit institutions: Malden Catholic High School, Girls Division, 99 Crystal St, Malden, MA 02148, www.maldencatholic.org; the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, PO Box 30818, Charleston, SC 29417, www.charlestonsymphony.org; or the Kiawah Conservancy, 80 Kestrel Ct, Kiawah Island, SC 29455; www.kiawahconservancy.org.