Pamela Scott Harris Daugherty transitioned on Feb. 12, 2024. She had been admitted to Cape Cod Hospital, where she was being treated for complications following recent cancer therapy. She was supported by her husband Lenston and their daughter Soleil as she fought bravely to the very end.
She loved, truly loved the beach! Sanibel, Lucy Vincent, and Inkwell, particularly. She was an avid people person, with a disarmingly self-effacing wit about her; quick to make a friend of a stranger. She was the kind who couldn’t stand to walk by someone in need without contributing some assistance.
Pamela attended East Carolina University, where she earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in theater design and production. While there she also studied writing and acting; she was actually enrolled in the same acting class as Sandra Bullock, with whom she shared the stage, playing sisters, in one of the Theater Arts stage productions. After graduating at the top of her class, she was asked to consider a staff position in the theater department.
Instead she did what she had long dreamed of doing, and moved to New York, to pursue a career in theater. She found employment at the renowned Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center. She also co-founded a three-woman scriptwriting group, co-writing a series of off-Broadway plays.
At the Rainbow Room, Pamela worked her way up from expeditor to captain and then on to manager, becoming the first woman to hold the position in what is considered the original home of glamor in NYC, founded in 1934. She found herself on a first-name basis with patrons and regular performers like Liza Minelli, Al (“Grandpa Munster”) Lewis, Karen Grassle, and Joan Rivers.
Pam continued to participate in a number of artistic projects, acting in an Asian student film and an episode of NBC’s “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,” hair modeling at expo shows for Vidal Sassoon, and performing as a member of the ComedySportz improv group. She would also publish a poem, “The Thick of July,” in a volume of the New York Poetry Society’s annual hardbound edition.
In 1992, on a visit to Raleigh, N.C., to attend her sister Paula’s wedding, Pamela would meet her soon to be husband, Lenston. They would go on to collaborate on many creative projects, traveling and participating in artistic communities, living and working in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side in New York, Little Five Points in Atlanta, Ga., Belltown and Capital Hill in Seattle, Wash., Fort Myers and Cape Coral in Florida, before the aftermath of Hurricane Charley in 2004. The Category 4 storm would play a key role in their decision to visit and eventually settle in Martha’s Vineyard for what would be the next 18 years.
They soon became involved with the theater arts on the Vineyard, donating a set for the 2005 Edgartown School production of “Bye Bye Birdie.” Pamela would work on costumes, props, and as stage coordinator for the next two seasons of the Fourth Grade Theater Project, a great joy to her as it involved some of her favorite activities, creative art and design, and working with children. She would have participated the next season too, but she and Lenston were expecting their daughter Soleil, who was born on Dec. 4, 2007. Being a mother to her daughter was what she loved the most, and what she was the most proud of.
While a stay-at-home mom, Pamela started a modest business preparing homemade vegan soups and chilis, which she would share with friends and eventually sell at a local market in Tisbury, as well as at festivals and fairs in Oak Bluffs. She also organized two pop-up soup kitchens at the Stone Church Food Pantry, where Soleil and Lenston were on hand to serve a hot meal to the community as they collected items from the pantry. She was working on a vegan cookbook for kids, which will be completed by her family in her honor.
Pamela is survived by her husband, Lenston Daugherty III; their daughter, Soleil Z.S. Daugherty; her brother Robert and wife Sonya Harris; sisters Paula Harris and Patti and husband Julien Mordecai; nieces Savannah, Beatrice, and Marina; nephews Julien Wood and Harris; as well as brother-in-law Robert and wife Saporah Daugherty, and sister-in-law Lenetta Daugherty; nephews Qasim, Albert, and Yusef; and nieces Karima, Queridah, Amira, and Amina.
Pamela was laid to rest on Feb. 16 at Cedar Knoll Cemetery in East Taunton.
A celebration of life for friends and family will be held at a date to be announced this summer.
Donations can be made in honor of Pamela for Soleil’s school fund, and to finish Pamela’s cookbook, at M.V. Savings Bank, care of S and L. Daugherty III.
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