Lynda 'Lynn' Miner Cryer, longtime Huntington resident who helped needy mothers, dies at 81
Lynda "Lynn" Miner Cryer directed the Oyster Bay-based Parent-Child Home Program, which helped indigent mothers teach cognitive skills to their children. Credit: Cryer family
Lynda Miner Cryer wasn’t motivated by money or accolades.
When she sat on the floor, book in hand, with children and mothers in need as director of the Oyster Bay-based Parent-Child Home Program — an effort centered on developing literary skills and showing parents the power of teachable moments — her purpose was simple: Help others, her friends and family said.
A “salt of the earth” advocate for under-resourced communities, Cryer worked to elevate the importance of language and nature in those she came into contact with. Her daughter Erica Cryer Raji said she recalls her mother bringing underprivileged children to see the ocean at Robert Moses Beach.
“She always looked out for an underdog,” said Raji, 48, of Huntington.
Lynda Cryer, who was diagnosed in recent years with dementia, died at her Huntington home Feb. 23 at age 81, her family said.
Known affectionately as “Lynn,” Cryer, who was born in Pittsburgh, moved more than a dozen times growing up, according to Raji. She married Dan Cryer, a longtime Newsday book critic, and had her first daughter, Julia, in Minnesota before moving to Huntington in the early 1970s, where Raji was born.
There, she met Sue and David Taylor at a Unitarian church. The couple, who now live in New Hampshire, also had young children at the time and they became lifelong friends.
“She just was a very compassionate and empathetic person,” said Sue Taylor, “and she really felt others' pain — people who were struggling.”
Cryer had graduated from The College of Wooster, in Ohio, according to Dan. She earned a master’s degree in speech therapy at the University of Virginia and later, a master’s in social work at Adelphi University. She was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Huntington.
Cryer was passionate about women’s issues and the LGBTQ+ community, Taylor said. After her divorce, Cryer, who came out as gay, lived with her partner, Marion Sullewsky, until her death in 2016.
Cryer was an avid reader, writer and a lover of nature, Taylor said, and had a deep connection to it — one she fostered in walks and a desire to “live lightly on the planet.” She wrote poetry and often shared her love of literature.
“I loved her poems,” Taylor said. “They were an important part of her life.”
The arts moved the longtime Huntington resident, said Julia Cryer, 52. Her mother sought out art museums and had a passion for '60s music, including the Beatles and Bob Dylan.
Julia Cryer, of Huntington, said she fondly remembers the family dinners she would share with her mother and sister, especially later into her mother’s life.
“It was special,” she said.
Lynda Cryer ran her own therapy practice before working at the Parent-Child Home Program, now called ParentChild+, and retired in 2011. She later became a grandmother to Raji’s two children, Wynston, 7, and Remy, 5, both of Huntington.
Cryer is survived by her children; her former husband, Dan; siblings Patricia Ralston, of Maine; Kimberley Miner and David Miner, both of Pennsylvania; and Jeffrey Miner, of Georgia; and her grandchildren.
Lynda Cryer was cremated, Julia Cryer said. A gathering of friends and family is expected to take place in the late spring or early summer, she said.
Joseph Ostapiuk covers the Town of Oyster Bay and the City of Glen Cove. He joined Newsday in 2023 after spending more than six years at the Staten Island Advance/SILive.com.
