Pat Schulmayr, a South Palm Beach resident for 36 years, relaxes in her condo. She was vice mayor for a few years about 20 years ago but is no longer politically active. ‘After being on the council it’s very difficult to sit in the audience,’ she says. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
In her 85 years here on Earth, South Palm Beach resident Pat Schulmayr has never had a hard time keeping busy.
In her younger years it was work, from becoming the secretary of the director of sales at NBC in New York City to secretary of the principal at the high school she attended in Amityville, New York.
Since she moved to South Palm Beach in 1985, it’s been more community activism, including serving as town councilwoman beginning in 2000, then spending four years as vice mayor until 2006.
“I’ve still got my Irish mouth going,” said Schulmayr, harkening back to her days growing up as Patricia Catherine McCarthy. “After being on the council it’s very difficult to sit in the audience.”
One of the topics that sparked Schulmayr’s ire was a proposal to build an expensive new firehouse in South Palm Beach. “The one we have now is two minutes away in Manalapan,” she said.
She’s also not happy that South Palm Beach eliminated its police force in favor of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
“The new council chose them because they didn’t want liability. Now they hide in the bushes, and I don’t know any of them. When we had our own police, they were wonderful because you knew everybody.
“When my late husband (Josef) was sick, they would come and take his blood pressure. And when I had kidney stones and was about to pass out, I opened the door and called 911 and the chief himself came and said, ‘Patricia, you never call 911 so I came.’ That’s the kind of police we had and now it’s gone.”
Married at 19 and later divorced to escape an abusive relationship, Schulmayr met her second husband at a church.
“I don’t know why I married Josef. He wasn’t a good dancer, and he didn’t tell jokes. But when I was up for the election, he took off work and was helping me. That’s the kind of person I never had with the first husband. I tell the young girls who pick on their husbands, don’t, because he’s accepting you for who you are.”
Schulmayr has four children: Susan, 65, who resides in New Jersey; Robert, 64, who followed Josef into the tile business and resides in Florida; Ross, 62, who splits time between a condo next door to hers and Queensbury, New York, and Patrick, 55, who lives in Amityville.
— Brian Biggane
Q: Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A: I grew up in Massapequa, Long Island, but went by bus to the school in Amityville. I was very active in sports, was in Leaders Club. An opportunity came up in the form of a test to get a spot in the business school in New York City and I finished at the top in finger dexterity. So, I was in school and went to an interview at NBC dressed all in black on St. Patrick’s Day. The man interviewing me said, “Why is an Irish girl like you wearing all black?” I said, “Because my name is Irish enough,” and I got the job.
Then I was chosen to be secretary to the head of sales. I worked when I was 81/2 months pregnant, because I was making $90 a week, back in the ’50s, and my husband was making $40 working for the state of New York.
I loved working in the city, it was very educational. I got to know the actor Pat Harrington Jr. and went to parties where Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca would come. They were just wonderful people.
Q: What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
A: I enjoyed working. My mother was the postmistress in Massapequa so I would work in the post office at Christmastime. I also took the census. When my last child was in kindergarten, I went back to work at the high school, recording the children who came in tardy. The kids became my best friends; if the principal couldn’t handle them, he’d say, “Send them down to Pat.”
I had a falling out with one of the other employees, so I went to the grammar school, but when that person left, the vice principal asked me to come back and be his secretary and do the budget.
When I came here [to Florida] in 1982, I went to interviews all over and they told me I was overqualified. I was always working so I was bored out of my mind, but then I got elected to the Town Council in 2000. I had that for six years. My husband died in 2004. We had participated in everything together, and after he died it was so hard to do it again, so I didn’t.
Q: What advice do you have for a young person seeking a career today?
A: It’s very important that, if you start out in a career, don’t expect to move up right away, but pay attention and care about the company. Don’t do things for personal accomplishment, do it for the company. That’s how I did it for the condo when I was on the council.
The manager we have now gave me a police badge last Christmas and said, “How come you see all these things and these people don’t?”
Q: How did you choose to make your home in South Palm Beach?
A: We were living up in West Palm Beach in a house and we were told it would cost $75,000 to buy it, and when I went to the banks, they told us it was only worth $35,000 because of the neighborhood. So, I looked in the “Shiny Sheet.” I didn’t so much care for the building [we moved into], but I saw the garden in the back. Nobody has a garden like this. We had a nice garden up in Amityville and I did all the gardening, so we bought it because of that.
Q: What is your favorite part about living in South Palm Beach?
A: The beach across the street. I always used to walk every day on the beach, even in a winter coat if it was cold. I haven’t lately because of sciatica. I’m told it has a lot to do with being 85.
Q: What book are you reading now?
A: I’m not right now. What I do every day, when I read the newspaper, I read the crossword puzzle. I started doing that when I lived in West Palm Beach and couldn’t get a job because I didn’t know anybody down here. But I like the crosswords because it really gets me when I can’t get a word.
Q: What music do you listen to when you want to relax? When you want to be inspired?
A: The only music I listen to is when I’m driving around doing errands. Then I listen to 100.3-FM. The guy who sold me my car, a 2018 Ford Fusion, told me the station was all music from the past, Frank Sinatra and all that. So, I keep it on that station.
Q: Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A: After I got divorced and was in my early 30s, I was working for a principal at the school, and he told me to go see a psychiatrist to deal with the trauma. I went, told her what I was upset about, and she told me she wouldn’t charge me for the visit because I knew how to deal with it.
Q: If your life story were to be made into a movie, who would play you?
A: An old friend, we went to grammar school and high school together, she lives in California, and they have a winery. Gail Haladay, now she’s Gail Laird. She was an actress in our school plays. She would do a good job.
Q: Is there something people don’t know about you but should?
A: I was very active in school and was named Miss Personality in the yearbook, but I still didn’t have the self-confidence people thought I had until I got that job with NBC. Even though I had the big mouth, it wasn’t until I had that job that I got the self-confidence people thought I had.
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