Marcia Feeney

Marcia McQuillen Feeney, a devoted mother and grandmother who helped launch two federal employee health plans in the Washington area before moving to Naples and bringing those same leadership skills to the Countryside community, died Feb. 6 at Avow Hospice House. She was 76 and had battled ovarian cancer.
Born on July 28, 1942, in Buffalo, N.Y., Ms. Feeney was the daughter of Joseph McQuillen, a train conductor who worked two full-time jobs to support a large family, and his wife Rita, an upbeat and energetic homemaker who made sure her kids attended weekly Mass. As the third of 10 children, Ms. Feeney served as a caretaker for her younger siblings. While money and space were limited, Ms. Feeney often credited these years with bringing the family close and developing the “McQuillen sense of humor,” which allowed the siblings to delight in each other’s company all their lives.
After graduating from Bishop McMahon High School in Buffalo, Ms. Feeney took a job as a law firm secretary. In 1962, she married her high school sweetheart, Norman Gomlak, and had two children, Norman Jr. and Colleen. She later recounted that these early years with her children, walking in the park or getting ice cream, were among the happiest of her life.
After the kids started school, Ms. Feeney enrolled in classes at the State University of New York, Buffalo and discovered a passion for Russian history. She was particularly interested in the growing political consciousness and independence of women during the Russian Revolution. Ms. Feeney became active in the women’s movement, joining consciousness-raising groups and organizing a co-op daycare on the UB campus for the children of students. She later received a master’s degree in Russian history. After the dissolution of her first marriage, she took a job as a teacher at Mount St. Joseph’s Academy in Buffalo.
She spent four years at the all-girls Catholic high school, forging deep bonds with students but ruffling feathers in the administrative offices. She instructed her students to role play dealing with unwanted male attention, organized a talk with a prisoner about the Attica riots, and took some students to a lesbian studies class at the UB campus -- rather edgy for a Catholic schoolteacher in the early 1970s.
“I loved teaching, I really loved it,” Ms. Feeney told a journalist with whom she collaborated on a memoir.  
In 1976, on a trip to Washington, D.C. to visit her brother, Bill, Ms. Feeney dropped her resume off at a congressional personnel office. She landed an interview that day and was hired on the spot to staff the House subcommittee on welfare and unemployment compensation.
Her son and daughter quickly adjusted to their new life, taking the bus to the city to meet her for movies or plays, having impromptu dance parties and once ice skating on the Potomac River during a deep freeze.
In 1980, the president of the National Association of Government Employees tapped Ms. Feeney to create a health insurance plan for members. Although she had no experience devising insurance coverage, Ms. Feeney threw herself into the task, studying the intricacies of other plans and traveling around the country to tout the plan.
“I started out sitting in an empty room, just me and an electric typewriter and brochures for all the health plans I could find,” she recalled recently.
Ms. Feeney hired an all-woman staff and even allowed new mothers to bring their babies to the office. She spent eight years building the health plan for NAGE and then accepted a job creating a similar plan for the Beneficial Association of Capitol Employees.
“The plan was a success, and at one point we represented a large share of Capitol employees, including future Vice President Al Gore,” she recalled.
It was through this work that Ms. Feeney met her second husband, Thomas Feeney, a retired FBI agent who oversaw a benefits association for special agents. They married on the beach in Hawaii in 1986. After Mr. Feeney retired in 1992, the couple built a home in Naples’ Countryside community, becoming year-round residents in 2002.
They became avid golfers and traveled extensively, visiting Hawaii, Nevis and Ireland among other places. Ms. Feeney became active in neighborhood politics, organizing a women’s advancement council and eventually being elected president of the Countryside board, a post she held from 2008 to 2010. She helped recruit a new general manager and improved professionalism.
In 2009, Mrs. Feeney was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and in subsequent years underwent multiple hip replacements and painful back surgery. Still, Ms. Feeney remained busy, attending annual McQuillen family reunions at Crystal Beach, Ontario and making regular trips to northern Virginia to visit her grandchildren.
“My grandkids have been such a joy, I couldn’t get up fast enough from Florida to see them,” Ms. Feeney said in an interview.  “My grandchildren and I had one rule: You can’t cry when you’re with Grandma. They called me ‘Grandma Claus’ because I usually brought treats and toys. And we would sing songs together.”
Ms. Feeney was a meticulous dresser, favoring pink and powder-blue sweaters and Capri pants and matching shoes, even to routine appointments. She also enjoyed playing bridge, chronicling family gatherings and trips in photos, watching Christmas movies, and listening to Johnny Mathis.
With her easy Irish smile and genuine interest in others, she made friends easily, even while sick. One friend said she didn’t know anyone who had a bigger heart.
Mr. Feeney died in 2016. Months later, Ms. Feeney was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer. After initial chemotherapy landed her in the hospital, some doctors advised against further treatment. But as one friend remarked, “They didn’t know Marcia.” She received 10 more rounds of chemotherapy, allowing her to attend two more family reunions, collaborate on a memoir and organize a Caribbean cruise for her son, daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren.
Mrs. Feeney died with her grown children and beloved Maltipoo, Sabrina, by her side.
In addition to her son Norman Gomlak of Houston and daughter Colleen Jungers (David) of Great Falls, Va.,, she is survived by grandchildren Megan, Steven and Mark Jungers; brothers Joseph (Sally) of Winnetka, Ill., and Paul (Linda) of Hamburg, N.Y.; sisters Deborah Kent (William) of Hamburg and Kathleen McQuillen of Des Moines, Iowa; sister-in-law Maureen McQuillen (Medfield, Mass).; and many nieces and nephews.
Ms. Feeney was predeceased by her parents; brothers Jeremiah, William and Robert McQuillen; sisters Patricia and Dianne McQuillen; niece Kerry Ryan Van Cott and nephew Christopher McQuillen.
A Celebration of Life will be held at 6 p.m. on Feb. 17 at Fuller Funeral Home-East, 4735 Tamiami Trail East, in Naples. A funeral Mass will be held at 10 a.m. Feb. 18 at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Naples.