Empathy in action: The life and times of Southold’s Brooks McEwen

Brooks McEwen never tiptoed through life. She marched through it, full-hearted and unfiltered, the kind of woman whose honesty could knock you back a step — but whose loyalty and generosity left a deep impression on everyone she touched.

She was diagnosed with an exceedingly rare and aggressive cancer called mast cell leukemia on June 4 — her 75th birthday — and died 49 days later in a Manhattan hospital, after one final project: orchestrating a blood drive.

“She was a force of nature,” said her son David Brand. “Incredibly empathetic, vibrantly opinionated and completely herself — always. People were drawn into her orbit because she was real, and she was resolute. She brought color to every life she touched.”

Born in Chicago, McEwen and her husband, the television writer Josh Brand, lived in both Los Angeles and New York City before moving to the East End. In her early years, she produced children’s educational videos. Later, as she raised two sons in Los Angeles, she shifted into social work.

“She loved a project,” David said. “And her favorite projects were people.”

McEwen organized a medical clinic for the uninsured at the L.A. Coliseum, served as a court-appointed advocate for foster children in the California court system and manned the phones at a suicide prevention hotline. She always showed up, according to her friends and family.

“She found joy in being useful,” said her son Sam Brand. “She knew she had a gift — she was magnetic, articulate — and she gave to others with a kind of effortlessness that inspired everyone around her.”

McEwen and her husband moved to the North Fork more than a decade ago. Introduced to the region by close friends Barbara Schnitzler and Billy Finkelstein, the couple quickly fell in love with Southold. After a two-year search, they bought a home in Mattituck and embedded themselves in the community. In time, McEwen became a vital force in the local network of nonprofits and civic efforts.

A dedicated Southold Democrat, she volunteered throughout the North Fork, helping organize community events large and small, and got deeply involved in supporting the New Suffolk Waterfront Fund, even though she lived in Mattituck.

“She just wanted to help,” said Schnitzler, who had known McEwen for more than 30 years. “She didn’t need a title or a board seat. She didn’t want one. She just showed up, helped out, donated — brought whatever was needed.”

Baume agreed.

“She just was so passionate. She always said yes … She would give you 125%.”

“We had a family tragedy,” Schnitzler recalled, “and she remembered that tragedy every year. On that date, she brought me a pile of stupid magazines to read to keep my mind off of it. Every year — it was there.”

She was known, too, for her unapologetic honesty.

“You’d introduce a friend to Brooks and they’d say, ‘Wow, who was that?’” Finkelstein said. “She spoke her mind. She didn’t refrain.”

Baume loved McEwen’s moxie.

“She had a wicked sense of humor. Wicked! She would say the thing that maybe you were thinking — but God, you would never say. But she did.”

“She was just incredible,” Schnitzler added. “You asked her for the smallest piece of advice, and she — everything was so well thought out. She cared so much.”

‘She doesn’t want flowers’

As news of her diagnosis spread this summer, friends scrambled to find ways to help. They reached out to her husband to ask what they could do.

“She doesn’t want flowers,” Josh told them. “She wants blood.”

For the nearly two months she was hospitalized, McEwen required a near-constant infusion of blood and platelets.

Sam put it plainly: “My mom might have taken down literally a barrel of blood.

“You always hear, ‘Give blood,’ right?” he said. “I didn’t recognize what it was like for people who really need it … It’s a renewable resource.”

As the leukemia consumed their mother’s bone marrow, her mind remained focused elsewhere.

“What I want most is for people to donate blood,” she told her family, only half-joking when she would say, ‘There’s not going to be enough left for anybody else.’”

Whether she knew it or not, McEwen was on to something.

Only 3% of Americans are active blood donors, according to the New York Blood Center — which declared a blood emergency in June. In New York, only 2% of the state’s nearly 20 million residents donate blood. To reliably meet patient needs, according to the center, at least 4% of the population must be active donors.

It’s a growing nationwide problem. In the past 20 years, the number of Red Cross blood donors has plummeted by 40%, according to the agency, and a post pandemic era national analysis by the College of American Pathologists found persistent drops in blood donations.

So her friends Gloria Baume and Schnitzler organized a blood drive in her honor.

“She got very excited when Dave first presented her with the idea and the fact that there was going to be an organized drive in her name,” Sam said. “She saw photos of people giving blood and it kind of supercharged her in the hospital, and gave her energy. I think that she felt for the first time [since her diagnosis] that she was bringing something to the table, that she was contributing, even in the hospital.”

Her son David agreed.

“She loved this community,” he said. “And when she found out people were donating [blood] in her name, her eyes lit up. It really moved her that she would have some sort of legacy out here.”

The drive drew friends, neighbors and strangers. Baume was deeply moved by one woman, 80, who arrived with a doctor’s note clearing her to donate — a requirement for donors 76 and older. “She didn’t even know Brooks,” Baume said. “She just wanted to do something.”

Baume said organizing the blood drive was an eye-opening experience for her.

“I had never donated blood, but I did just the smallest amount of research and I realized that if you find the right organization to work with, all you need to do is say, ‘This is a good cause, and these are the amount of people that I’m expecting will come,’ and then they do most of the work.

“So all we really had to do was just go out and tell people and spread the word,” she said.”But the truth is that Brooks had all those people already. Everyone knew her and adored her. Everyone wanted to somehow help in some way. It was such an easy thing to do.”

‘A very short chapter’

For McEwen’s sons, her legacy is in the values she passed on. “She raised us with a deep sense of responsibility to others,” Sam said. “To show up, to give back, to care.”

Josh Brand, best known as the co-creator of television shows like “St. Elsewhere” and “Northern Exposure,” was by his wife’s side every day of her illness. Their marriage, forged over 45 years, grew even stronger as the disease progressed, according to their sons.

“My mom didn’t want to call it a fight,” David said. “But my dad fought for her. Every hour. Every appointment. Every tough decision. He was her champion.”

Sam agreed.

“Throughout her confrontation with mast cell leukemia, my dad was – I’ve never seen him so selfless … And it surprised him that it felt so natural. He loved it. He loved taking care of her.”

McEwen adored her grandson, Jack, who was born just nine months before she died.

“I miss my mom for a hundred ways, but I miss — she was so helpful with Jack,” Sam said. “I keep looking around for that extra pair of hands. My mom was 75 years old, but she never got old. She got sick.”

McEwen cherished the North Fork’s natural beauty. She loved to wander alone through the Landcraft Garden Foundation in Mattituck. She adored her cavapoo Betty and the daily ritual of their walks along Bailie Beach or South Harbor Beach.

“She surrounded herself with beauty,” Baume said. “That’s when you started realizing she was a softie. She camouflaged herself to be this kind of tough, street kid — but she so wasn’t. She was like this wonderful, giving softie.”

McEwen’s friends and family aim to continue holding the blood drive in her name each summer.

“It’s a very short chapter — this illness,” her son David said. “Two months in a very long, vibrant, rich book … not only full for her, but for everyone around her. She had such a huge impact on so many people. It’s kind of all anyone can hope for at the end of the day.”