Sarah Snyder; Globe reporter, editor was devoted to her family

When Benjamin, her first child, was born in 1992, she and a colleague began splitting an assistant Metro editor job, blazing a trail in the newsroom for women who wanted to keep their careers while devoting as much time as possible to their children.

"I work a part-time schedule so I can spend Mondays and Tuesdays at home with the kids," she wrote for the Globe's Sunday Magazine in 1998, a couple of years after her daughter, Katherine, was born. "While I never would have imagined this before becoming a parent, the high point of my week is no longer Friday night bar hopping or Sunday morning reading the paper. It is Tuesday afternoon on our stoop, watching the two of them play."

Luxuriating in "precious, languid, hang-out time" was a prelude to the next three days, when she inspired and encouraged colleagues with energy that seemed to know no limit. Ms. Snyder, an editor and reporter at the Globe for more than 25 years, died in her Milton home Sunday. She was 51 and was diagnosed several years ago with cancer that recurred recently.

"She was a force of nature," said Globe reporter Shelley Murphy.

"When she had an idea, she spoke with her hands, she made great motions, her voice rose, her tempo increased - and this was just on a phone to a freelancer," said David Beard, editor of Boston.com, who formerly edited the paper's City Weekly section with Ms. Snyder. "There was little subtlety about Sarah."

"Sarah was a warm and loving person who brought a high sense of moral purpose to her work. She would fight ferociously for her principles, and I know she brought that same fighting spirit to battling this disease. That bought her more time, but now she is gone and we will miss her terribly," said former Globe editor Matthew Storin, who hired Ms. Snyder when he was managing editor.

Fearless as a reporter and incisive as an editor, she asked the kind of pointed questions that others barely dared think, and could silence a room just as easily with her laughter.

"She's the only person who could hit high-C when she laughed," said Globe reporter and columnist Bella English. "She was completely unself-conscious about this huge laugh from a slender woman. You'd be in a coffee shop and all the heads would turn, and she was completely oblivious."

Because of her gifts as a writer and editor, many at the Globe sought Ms. Snyder's guidance.

"Some of the most talented reporters in the room came into my office every week clamoring to be edited by her," said Teresa Hanafin, director of community publishing for Boston.com and formerly the Globe's assistant managing editor for local news. "They all wanted the benefit of her innate brilliance, her expansive intellect, and her deft touch with copy. If I had listened to all of them, Sarah would have had a staff of about 50 writers reporting solely to her."

"She was so smart, so fair, and always made you think," Murphy said. "She was someone who made you feel better about yourself, but she also pushed you to be better."

Born in New York City, Ms. Snyder grew up in Pound Ridge, N.Y., and moved to Florida at age 12, after her mother died. While still at St. Petersburg High School in Florida, she landed an internship at the St. Petersburg Times that usually went to a college student.

After graduating from high school and the University of Florida, she took a full-time job at the Times. From there she moved to the Chicago Sun-Times where, for a while, she was an assistant to legendary columnist Mike Royko. In 1984, she arrived at the Globe as a Metro reporter.

Over the next quarter-century, she held positions including business reporter, assistant business editor, deputy city editor, and South Weekly editor. Most recently, she was an editor of Globe South.

While working as a business reporter years ago, she went to a social gathering of business news staffs for the Globe and the Boston Herald. She met Geoffrey Smith, then a Herald business reporter.

"It was love at first sight," he said, "and I pursued her vigorously for several years after that, and finally won her over."

They married in September 1989 on Nantucket, where Ms. Snyder's family owned property.

"Nantucket was just very, very dear to her heart," said an uncle, Edward Foley Vaughan, who lives on the island. "It was sort of a Shangri-La for Sarah."

Ms. Snyder, he said, "brought out the best in everybody, and was like a burst of sunshine in a room - kind of like a solar flare."

At work, she traded hand-me-downs with other young mothers with pride. "These workplace maternity clothes are the badge of a fairly small honorary society in the newsroom: women who managed to keep their careers from withering in the face of raising children," she wrote in 1996.

"She cared so much about her friends' lives," English said. "To be Sarah's friend was to be really well-loved, and we all loved her. Sarah was very rich in love."

"When I saw her Friday morning, I said, 'No one could have a greater friend than you,' and she said, 'Aww, I'll always be your friend,' " Murphy said. "And you know, she's taught everybody so much I feel like she will always be with us. I can hear Sarah's voice in my ear saying, 'Don't have any regrets. Just go do it.' "

Having grown up, from adolescence on, without her own mother, Ms. Snyder was determined to be a presence in her children's lives. When a colleague died of cancer more than a decade ago, Ms. Snyder took a year off to spend with her son and daughter - investing time as a hedge against the unknown.

Ben is now 16, Kate is 12.

"There was nothing she loved more than spending a day with her kids," her husband said. "She loved nothing more than doing their homework with them; it was her favorite thing. One of the reasons I loved her so much was because she was one of the world's most amazing mothers."

"Most of the time, I feel incomparably lucky," she wrote in the 1998 Sunday Magazine piece. "To have enough time with one's children without giving up a career to do it has become the brass ring for most mothers I know. On Tuesdays, at least, I feel it firmly in my hands."

In addition to her husband, son, daughter, and uncle, Ms. Snyder leaves her sister, Wendy, of Stamford, Conn.; and two brothers, William D. Coakley Jr. and Brendan Coakley, both of Cleveland.

A service will be held at a later date.