Peggy McDonnell is a professional photographer and the wife of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. Vance has been leading the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s finances and obtained access to Trump’s tax records via a Supreme Court decision. Vance announced on March 12 that he would not seek re-election. His current term ends at the end of 2021.
McDonnell and Vance tied the knot in 1984 and have two children together. According to Vance’s professional bio, the family lives on the west side of Manhattan.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Peggy McDonnell Operates a Photography & Printing Studio From Upstate New York
McDonnell owns a photography company called Beech Tree Studios. It is based in Old Chatham, New York, according to the affiliated Instagram account. The town is located about 125 miles north of New York City.
McDonnell described her expertise on the company’s website: “Shooting with film and printing in a dark room remains my favorite way to create photographs. My work is varied; I have shot weddings, in prisons, my family, home interiors, around the world and especially around this farm.” The website since been deactivated but McDonnell has continued to post family pictures to the Beech Tree Studios Instagram account.
The Beech Tree Studios Instagram page has multiple family photos, including childhood pictures of Peggy and Cyrus’ son and daughter, who are both adults. This photo is of her daughter, Clare, posing with a basketball as a child. Clare joked in the comments that she hadn’t “touched a basketball since.”
McDonnell shared this candid photo of her husband as he walked down a Manhattan street. She wrote, “Taking some slings and arrows but standing strong.”She shared the picture around the time Vance was being criticized for his 2015 decision not to prosecute Harvey Weinstein on a sex crime, as the New Yorker reported.
According to a 2009 profile in the New York Times, McDonnell’s photographs have been on display in her husband’s office. The newspaper reported that Vance decorated his midtown office at the time with “black-and-white photographs” McDonnell shot.
2. McDonnell Sells Stationery With a Company Called ‘Glassybaby’ in Seattle
McDonnell focuses part of her business on prints and stationery. She explained on her since-deactivated Beech Tree Studios website, “The letterpress branch of Beech Tree is my effort to encourage handwritten communication for every occasion — for gratitude, for congratulations, for mourning, for keeping in touch. The paper is usually from Italy but I recently began working with heavier card stock. Collections change seasonally. In Seattle, WA, you can find my stationery at glassybaby. In Lenox, MA, it is sold at Local.”
McDonnell’s professional partnership with Glassybaby was still active as of late 2019. She posted on Instagram in November of that year about how the company was holding a pop-up sale in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. McDonnell shared the news alongside a photo of her and Glassybaby’s founder sitting on a stoop.
McDonnell’s partnership with Glassybaby likely began when the family was living in Seattle, from 1988 until 2004. Vance co-founded the firm McNaul Ebel Nawrot Helgren & Vance, according to Post Alley, and taught at the Seattle University School of Law.
3. McDonnell Worked at an Art Gallery in Ireland After College
McDonnell was born on February 29, 1956. According to her wedding announcement in the New York Times, she attended Hamilton College, a private liberal arts school located about 40 miles east of Syracuse.
After graduating, McDonnell worked overseas for a time. She served as an administrative assistant with the Taylor Galleries in Dublin, Ireland. The gallery opened in 1978 and shows “a selection of contemporary and 20th-century Irish painting, sculpture, print and works on paper.”
McDonnell may have swerved from her family’s traditional path by pursuing a career in the arts. According to Vance and McDonnell’s engagement announcement in the New York Times, her paternal grandfather founded the brokerage house McDonnell & Company, which closed in 1970. Her maternal grandfather was chairman of the Manufacturers Trust Company and later chairman of the executive committee of the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company.”
4. Vance Once Had a Crush on McDonnell’s Older Sister
McDonnell and Vance first met as children. Vance told a Page Six reporter in 2009 that he had a crush on one of McDonnell’s older sisters back in the day. “But the sister didn’t love me back and, spurned, 15 years later I met Peggy again and we hit it off.”
Vance said the couple began dating while McDonnell was living in Ireland. They got married on May 5, 1984, while they were both in their late 20s.
McDonnell marked their anniversary in 2019 by sharing a photo from their wedding day on Instagram. She wrote in the caption, “Still going relatively strong.”
According to their wedding announcement, the ceremony took place at the Roman Catholic Church of St. Brigid in Peapack, New Jersey.
They have two grown children named Simon and Clare.
5. McDonnell’s Great-Grandfather Was the Inventor Thomas E. Murray, Who is Credited With Expanding New York City’s Electrical Grid
Peggy McDonnell is the great-granddaughter of National Inventors Hall of Fame inductee Thomas E. Murray. He is credited with expanding New York City’s electrical grid. His bio on the organization’s website explains that Murray had 462 patents that “covered everything from power plants to light sockets, including fuses, meters, switches, conduits, sockets, and dimmers. His inventions improved the safety of interior electric wiring which helped give birth to the electrical appliance industry.”
McDonnell’s father, T. Murray McDonnell was a vice president at the investment bank Allen & Company. He passed away in 1991 at age 68 after suffering a heart attack.
McDonell has seven siblings, according to her father’s obituary. She has three sisters: Pia Pearce, Megan Kyle, and Anna Harper. She has four brothers: Michael, Stephen, Terence and Andrew.
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