Catherine O’Neill, founding chair of the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children in 1989, died Wednesday evening in Los Angeles after a 12-year struggle with cancer and its complications. The former Pacific Palisades resident also served as director of the Washington, D.C., offices of the United Nations from 1999 until her retirement in 2005. She was 70.’ Catherine founded the commission, now known as the Women’s Refugee Commission, with actress Liv Ullmann. After making a series of visits to refugee camps in Pakistan, Thailand and elsewhere, the two women found, especially in places where war had driven people from their homes, that a special agency was needed, under the umbrella of the International Rescue Committee, to advocate for displaced women and families. Both women felt that humanitarian efforts in many countries were so male-dominated that women and children were often little more than an afterthought. They saw that in many camps ‘the system was run by men and geared to caring for the men,’ said her husband, Richard Reeves. ‘Young men of fighting age were fed first, then the boy children, because they’d be fighters in the future, then the old men and then the women.’ The Women’s Refugee Commission, headquartered in New York, with offices in Washington, Geneva and the Democratic Republic of Congo, today has a staff of 25 and works on behalf of women, children and youth displaced by war, persecution and natural disasters around the world.’Its advocacy focuses specifically on gender-based violence, migrant rights, sexual and reproductive health, and the needs of adolescent girls. In addition to her refugee work and advocacy, Catherine was public affairs director of RCA and the International Herald Tribune in Paris and the International Monetary Fund in Washington in the 1980s. She was also editorial director of KFWB Radio in Los Angeles. In California, Catherine became an active political figure, coming within a thousand or so votes of becoming the first woman member of the California Senate in 1972. She also ran for Secretary of State in 1974 and was finance director of Governor Jerry Brown’s 1976 presidential campaign. Catherine Elizabeth Vesey was born in Queens on July 17, 1942. Her parents were immigrants from Ireland. Her father, Patrick Vesey, became a New York City subway conductor; her mother, Bridget, was a cafeteria worker in city schools. Catherine graduated from St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn and taught for a year as a Roman Catholic missionary in La Grange, Texas. She later earned a master’s degree from Howard University in social work and a master’s in international affairs from Columbia University. She taught public-policy courses at USC. After moving to California following college, Catherine decided to run for the State Senate as a Democrat when she was 29 and realized that all candidates in the West Los Angeles area were white men. She won the Democratic primary for the (then) 25th District, a Republican stronghold, but lost in a close race in the general election. After that, with a friend from college and a neighbor, both women, she founded The Better Mousetrap, a manufacturer of lawn furniture. Catherine was married to Brian O’Neill, a Los Angeles attorney, until her divorce in 1978. She is survived by her husband of 33 years, Richard Reeves, an author and senior lecturer at the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism at USC; five children, Colin and Conor O’Neill of Los Angeles, Cynthia Reeves of Royal Palm Beach, Florida, Jeffrey Reeves of Los Angeles, and Fiona Reeves of Washington, D.C.; a grandchild, Rory Catherine O’Neill of Los Angeles; and a sister, Mary Ann Garvey of Dallas. Funeral arrangements are pending. Catherine will be interred in Sag Harbor, New York, where she and her husband owned a home for almost 30 years. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Women’s Refugee Commission in New York at womensrefugeecommission.org. Photo: Patricia Williams
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