Sandra Lee Oncay, 60, administrator, union leader

When Paul D. Moriarty was running for mayor of Washington Township in 2004, he was encountering a wall of silence.

"I had put up a website," asking for volunteers and contributions, he said, "and I got nothing."

Then, he said, "one day I woke up and there was a note from Sandy and a $100 contribution" on the website.

Muscular dystrophy had made Sandra Lee Oncay use a wheelchair since she was 8.

But after Moriarty won the mayoralty with her help, he said, "she asked if I could be sworn in at her house."

And so at midnight on the day he was sworn, "she held the Bible, she popped the champagne and celebrated."

Moriarty, a Democratic assemblyman since 2006, said Ms. Oncay "was smart, she was well-read, she was funny."

"Every day, she got up struggling to make the world better."

On Wednesday, July 27, Ms. Oncay, 60, of Turnersville, who retired in 2005 as an administrator for the Gloucester County Board of Social Services after a 28-year career there, died of pneumonia at her home.

She also had retired in 2002 after a 25-year career as vice president of Communication Workers of America Local 1085, which represents county welfare workers, brother Scott said.

Born in Washington Township, Ms. Oncay graduated from Washington Township High School in 1974 and earned an associate's degree in legal secretarial science at what is now Rowan College at Gloucester County in 1976.

In her graduation year, her brother said, she earned the President's Award for Leadership as an outstanding business student.

In August 1986, the Gloucester County Board of Freeholders named her to a three-year term on the county's Disabled Persons' Advisory Commission. Her brother said she served two terms.

At that time, she was also director of social services for a branch of the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

And from 1992 to 2003, he said, she was cochair for the Gloucester County Public Employees Charitable Campaign.

"She was a very independent and strong woman," her brother said. "She was the type of person, you would never know she had a disability."

She could not drive, he said, so "the internet was very advantageous."

Ms. Oncay lived in the home where she had grown up, her brother said, and so "her neighbors were a support group, a team effort."

And, he said, "her lifelines" were three part-time paid aides.

Among her honors, he said, was that the Southern New Jersey Coalition of Labor Union Women gave her its Bread and Roses Award in 1994.

And in 2004, the United Way of Gloucester County gave her its Spirit of Volunteerism Award.

Besides her brother, she is survived by brother Steven and sister Susan Tervail.

A visitation was set from noon to 2 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 3, at the McGuinness Funeral Home, 573 Egg Harbor Rd., Sewell, before a life celebration there at 2.

Donations may be sent to a charity of one's choice.

Condolences may be offered to the family at mcgfuneral.com.

wnaedele@phillynews.com

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