Jim Cummings

For many years a popular columnist with this paper, Cummings passed away last weekend aged 83 and after a life that was filled to the brim with positive thought, word and deed. In his many reports on the Irish community from Nassau County on Long Island, Cummings wrote with the kind of warmth and interest that can only be expressed when you are speaking of a place that’s next to your heart. Jim’s dedication and enthusiasm somehow spanned the miles between the island and the Echo’s Manhattan office and he was always a welcome figure when he ventured into those offices then located on Fifth Avenue and 32nd Street. The journey in from Long Island can be a hard grind of course. We well remember the retirement party in a midtown hostelry for the late John Thornton, Echo editor for most of the years that Jim penned his column, “Cummings & Goings.” There was no sign of Jim and John T. was beginning to worry. He need not have. At the very last moment, in bounded Jim with a framed proclamation from Nassau County honoring John. The two men embraced in a moment remembered by all who were there. To Jim’s family we express our deepest condolences, but we do so with the shared knowledge of a life lived well and to the fullest.