Island Profile: After losing his wife to cancer, a crusader carries on her fight

Townsend Montant’s is a familiar face to many Islanders for more than one reason. He’s often behind the counter at Shelter Island Wines and Spirits on Bridge Street and over the past several years he’s been active, with his late wife, Teresa, in the “Pink” campaigns for breast cancer awareness. Since her death last year, he’s continued his involvement and is even more committed because of it.

Towny grew up on the upper east side of Manhattan, one of two brothers, and never really liked the world of the city. What he did like were the summers in Wainscott, a hamlet in East Hampton Town, where his family vacationed throughout his childhood. Both he and his brother were delighted when his father retired early and moved the family out to Wainscott when the boys were halfway through high school.

He graduated from East Hampton High School in 1972 and went on to Paul Smith’s College, a school for hotel management in upstate New York, 20 miles north of Lake Placid. It was a “hands on” program, Towny said, and the school owned a commercial hotel, run for the public by the students.

After his graduation until he settled down with Teresa on Shelter Island in 1999, Towny, for the most part, led a hyphenated life.

When the weather in the north was warm, he worked in restaurants, clubs or resorts; when it turned cold, he worked the same venues in Florida. He was with owner Malcolm Willard on the waitstaff when the Cook (now Sweet Tomato’s) opened and remained five summers. He went on to work in the Ram’s Head Inn dining room for 10 years and managed the restaurant and tended bar at Gardiner’s Bay Country Club for six. Add in some spots on the South Fork all the way to Montauk and his allegiance to the East End is clear.

In Florida, he worked in and around Stewart, where he built a home. Stewart is more than halfway down the Atlantic side of the state and Towny knew many people there who had retired from the East End — and that’s where he met Teresa. She was living a similar life, moving with the seasons, waitressing and bartending. She had worked in the restaurant business to finance her college years and liked it.

In the beginning, Towny said, “We dated a couple of years on or off, and we kind of kept in touch and then she came here [to Shelter Island] in the summer of ‘98 for a visit.”

Towny was working as the restaurant manager at Gardiner’s Bay Country Club and when he was faced with a staff emergency, “Teresa jumped right in and took over the bar.” And then she stayed for the rest of the season. In those days, Gardiner’s Bay stayed open until after New Year’s, and when it closed that year, they left together for Florida. They worked the winter there, got married and returned to the Island, in 1999.

“I was living in what used to be a chicken coop here on the Island. It was very small for her, me and her 50-pound dog. It was like 400 square feet. She said, ‘We have to get a bigger place. Do something!’ so we bought on Sleepy Hollow Road, started building the house in 2000 and finished in 2001.” And gradually they both moved away from the restaurant business. Within a relatively short time, Teresa was working as the secretary in the Highway Department, continuing until her death last year. Towny moved into the wine business, working for a friend in Wainscott.

“I was always a foodie, reading food magazines, and I’d always been around food and wine,” he explained. “It was great because liquor stores were closed on Sundays and then you always had another day off during the week.” He took some relevant courses at Southampton College and went on to manage a wine shop in Southampton for five years, leaving only when Teresa became ill in 2009.

She had thought she was completely healthy, walking five miles a day, eating right and only 52 years old, but was diagnosed with breast cancer that had not been discovered on the mammogram she had just taken three months previously. She was given chemotherapy and radiation, followed by a double mastectomy with 13 lymph nodes removed, then more chemotherapy, then more radiation.

The large tumor was not detected on the mammogram because — as Teresa belatedly learned — she had “dense breasts,” as Teresa herself explained in a campaign to warn other women of the problem. If breast tissue is dense, tumors can’t be diagnosed by a mammogram alone — additional screening, usually an ultrasound scan, is required. After Teresa was diagnosed, she sought further information, obtaining copies of five years’ worth of her mammogram reports. Each one said she had dense tissue yet no one had told her so she never took the additional tests that would most likely have diagnosed her cancer earlier.

Understandably, she wanted to encourage women to ask for copies of their reports and to take responsibility for obtaining the most complete information possible.

It is this cause for which Towny continues to fight. Two states but not New York have laws requiring radiologists to notify patients whose mammograms reveal dense breast tissue. A similar law is now before the New York State Legislature but is being fiercely fought by the insurance lobbies, according to Towny, despite the fact that preventive care would probably save both lives and money. But the companies don’t want to pay for the additional tests.

Last week Towny was in Southampton at a fundraiser held in Teresa’s honor by Lucia’s Angels, a foundation that supports East End women with cancer. He will be traveling to Albany next week to take part in a news conference called by Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffe on the dense-breast legislative issue. He’s promised to keep Islanders informed in the Letters to the Editor section of the Reporter as to how they can help.

“It’s been hard,” Towny said of his days since Teresa died last fall. “I won’t lie to you and tell you it’s been an easy winter because it hasn’t been. People here are thoughtful, but some people I’ll see in the next few weeks left last September” so they won’t know about his wife. “That’ll be tough … I went to a wine tasting last week and a couple of people asked me how she was doing. The dentist asked me. They didn’t know. But it’s tough, just trying to stay positive. I try to just put one foot in front of the other every day and try to keep myself occupied.”

He went on to say that financially things have been difficult as well. Suddenly there’s only one salary instead of two and a hefty monthly outlay for health insurance. He likes working in the shop, where’s he’s been since January 2010, and likes Billy Schmidt, who owns the shop. In the winter, though, his work is limited to half time, which adds to the struggle. “Come this fall, I’ll have to figure out what to do financially.” In the meantime, he’s working hard on the “Pink” campaigns — he and Billy will be painting the front door of the shop bright pink this week. May is Mammogram Month and Towny wants everyone to notice.