Longtime NYC-based feminist and lesbian activist Sidney Abbott, 78, was found dead Wednesday morning after a fire in her home in Southold, Suffolk County.
The fire was discovered by her next-door neighbor, an off-duty volunteer firefighter who rushed to the burning Cape-style home and found the former member of the “Lavender Menace” and author of “Sappho Was a Right-on Woman” on the floor of her smoke-filled living room.
Tragically, the firefighter was beaten back by the intense flames.
“He was there instantly and tried pulling her out,” Southold Fire Chief Peggy Killian told The Post.
“He broke the door to get in there,” she said. But before he could pull her out, “the fire flashed over the top of his head, and it made him back out.”
The hero firefighter had to be hospitalized.
“He sucked in a lot of smoke — he didn’t have a pack,” the chief said.
Abbott was a force for gay women’s rights in New York and beyond since the ’70s, when she helped urge NOW not to ignore lesbian issues.
She had been wheelchair dependent in recent years, and had limited mobility, said Jacqueline Michot Ceballos, a friend for nearly 50 years.
“We were the earliest members of NOW, from day one in New York City, back in 1967,” said Ceballos, a former NOW-New York president and founder of the Veteran Feminists of America.
There were disagreements among the gay and straight members in those early days — famously, Betty Friedan warned about a “Lavender Menace” from the lesbian activists in their movement’s midst. But Abbott was always a mender of rifts within the larger feminist movement.
“She held no grudges and was truly a loving human being,” Ceballos said. “There was no anger whatsoever — It was very, very important to her to make sure we knew that there’s no big difference between us.”
Added VFA president Eleanor Pam, “Sydney Abbott’s contribution to modern feminism cannot be overstated. She was a brilliant, fearless trailblazer, an authentic pioneer in the women revolution and its struggle for equal rights.”
Longtime close friend and co-author Barbara Love spoke by phone with Abbott less than two hours before the fire. A home attendant had just left to do some shopping for Abbott, Love said.
“She was in good spirits,” said Love, who lived with Abbott in the ’70s and co-authored “Sappho,” which remains “a classic.”
“She’s very well known in the women’s movement,” Love said.
The Suffolk County ME’s office and local arson investigators were at the scene of the fire Wednesday, but found no initial indications that the fire was anything suspicious, officials said.
The cause of the fire has yet to be determined.