Pamela Rae Cullum, formerly of East Hampton and a descendant of the King family, which goes back many generations here, died on May 7 at home in Nineveh, N.Y. She was 77 and had been ill with cancer for nine months.
Mrs. Cullum was a devoted wife and mother. “That was her job. Those were her exact words the day she got married” to Charles Cullum in the early 1960s, her family wrote. They were married for 61 years and raised five children here, who survive along with 11 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.
Along with this came the duties of cooking and especially baking exceptional pies. Mrs. Cullum “spent hours watching cooking shows on TV and then trying the recipes” for those close to her, offering them “a meal you might get in a five-star restaurant, and the feeling that you were definitely welcomed at her table,” her family wrote.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when scallops were abundant and provided extra income for families, Mrs. Cullum could often be found opening them in the family scallop shops. Fishermen who went after bay scallops at the time each had their own shops where the shellfish were opened.
She was born in Southampton on Dec. 24, 1945, to Robert Lindsley and the former Gloria King of East Hampton.
The Cullums moved upstate to the mountains of Nineveh in 2006, “but she was born a Bonacker and died a Bonacker, having lived a simple but fulfilling life with her family,” they wrote.
Mrs. Cullum leaves her husband and their children: Charles Cullum Jr., Bruce Cullum, and Celina Sizse, all of East Hampton, David Cullum of New York City, and Christina Chinchilla of Nineveh. She also leaves two sisters, Doris Dolan of Schenectady, N.Y., and Patricia Lindsley of Rotterdam, N.Y. Two brothers, Robert Lindsley and Thomas Lindsley, died before her.
A graveside memorial service will be held here in the future.