Bess Rattray

A thirteenth-generation East Hamptonite, Bess Rattray arrived at The Church in 2024 as our Operations Manager. In addition to her work in the nonprofit realm, she is a journalist by training, and writes a column called The Shipwreck Rose for The East Hampton Star; before that, she spent nearly two decades as a senior editor at Vogue and has also been, in recent years, editor-in-chief of The Star’s regional magazine, EAST. She is a graduate of Barnard College, where she studied American history, and is raising her two teenagers, Nettie and Teddy, in her hometown. When off-duty, she has taken on various volunteer roles, including five years as an E.M.T. with the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association; five as the first female captain in a fire department in rural Nova Scotia; and,
currently, is proud to be the founder of the Anchor Society of East Hampton, a nonprofit that shares with
The Church a mission of fostering community.