For 23 years, Mina Ellen Cory Kahofer worked as an executive assistant at Community United Methodist Church in Jackson Heights, Queens, which held services in three languages, ran a day care center, and served the homeless.
For someone who was born on Flag Day, her family wrote, "it's no wonder that democratic and socialist ideals were central to her way of life."
Mrs. Kahofer, a resident of Wainscott for 30 years, died in her sleep at home on July 21 after a brief illness. She was 90.
She was educated at Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn and Westminster College in Pennsylvania. Her foray into the working world "landed her at the dawn of television," her family wrote, as executive assistant to Steve Allen, whose NBC show pioneered the format of late-night talk shows still popular today. She had plans to move with the show to California, but then she met Kurt Kahofer, the man who would become her husband. They married, settled in New York, and started a family in 1959.
While raising five children, Mrs. Kahofer volunteered her time for many years on the alumni board at Packer. She returned to the work force when her youngest began school, signing on with her church and playing an integral role in its administration, her family wrote.
She was born in Brooklyn on June 14, 1934, to the Rev. Dr. David Munroe Cory and the former Mina Haug. From the age of 7 on, she spent summers in Southampton.
After raising their family in Queens and Southampton, the Kahofers moved to Wainscott in 1994. "She loved being at the ocean, hosted many fun gatherings, and adored watching birds, squirrels, rabbits, and deer from her deck," her family wrote.
It even led to a new volunteer passion for Mrs. Kahofer: walking and socializing the dogs at the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, often twice a day, six days per week. "Her energy knew no bounds," her family wrote. "She arranged numerous adoptions for her family of dog lovers and adopted two of her own."
Mrs. Kahofer traveled near and far, watched classic and current movies, and enjoyed opera, theater, church hymns, and gospel. She was a fan of the New York City Ballet — for which she was a Fourth Ring Society member — as well as the New York Philharmonic and Barbra Streisand. For decades, she rarely missed an episode of "Jeopardy!"
"Mina had a gift with people," her family wrote. "In her presence they felt what they needed most — happier, calmer, relieved, hopeful — and this took no effort or awareness on her part because it came so naturally. She was helpful and completely humble, and always loved a good laugh."
She "always maintained a constant youthful spirit ready to mix with the day ahead with vigor, dignity, and grace."
Mr. Kahofer died in 2013. Mrs. Kahofer is survived by her five children, Lisa Cory of Los Angeles, Kurt E. Kahofer of North Sea, Heidi Varucene of Water Mill, Amy Bryant of Moretown, Vt., and Karl Kahofer of Emerson, N.J. She also leaves six grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, two brothers, John Cory and his wife, Doris Cory, of Mystic, Conn., and Daniel Cory and his wife, Toi Cory, of Southampton, and a sister-in-law, Nancy Cory of Sag Harbor. A brother, David Cory, died before her.
A celebration of her life is to take place at the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor in October. Her family has suggested memorial donations to the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, online at arfhamptons.org, or to another animal rescue effort of one's choosing.
