Puskar, kin of JFK aide, dies
EMILY PUSKAR, the daughter of a key figure in the Kennedy administration and the relative of two top Daily News editors, has died. She was 76. Puskar died Monday of gallbladder cancer at Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut.
A native of Washington, D.C., and a longtime resident of Greenwich, Puskar devoted her life to volunteer work.
She was most active in organizing the prayer group and outreach program for Christ Church Greenwich, where she was married on Sept. 30, 1967.
A failed real estate venture helped solidify her relationship with the church and reconnect her to her faith.
“I was feeling very, very unhappy about losing all this money," Puskar once told Episcopal Life magazine. “As a Christian, I needed to have God as my God, not money.”
Her other volunteer work included leading the Junior League and working in the office of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut.
Puskar, who had lineage that connected her to colonial Virginia, served more than a decade on the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America’s Board of Managers.
She was the mother of Daily News Head of Content/Features Katherine Pushkar and the motherin-law of Sports Editor Eric Barrow.
“My mother spent her life volunteering — for the Junior League, the Greenwich Library, Christ Church, the Colonial Dames — and opening her heart and home to everyone,” said her daughter, who altered the spelling of her family name.
“She was the best.”
Puskar was the daughter of Fowler Hamilton, the director of foreign aid under President John F. Kennedy, a position that instilled in her a lifelong passion for travel.
As a high school student at Greenwich Academy, she lived abroad in Switzerland. Just last year, she toured Turkey with a group from her church.
Puskar is survived by her husband, Valerian Puskar; a sister, Helen, and a brother, Milo; her daughter; a son, Michael, and four grandchildren, Brooke, Kay, Helen and Edward.
The funeral will be on Saturday at 4 p.m. at Christ Church on E. Putnam Ave. in Greenwich.