Tom Power, co-owner of the The Cheese Shop and Fat Canary, died Tuesday while on vacation in Bermuda with his wife Mary Ellen. He was 81.
According to his daughter, Cathy Power Pattisall, Power was an “avid ocean swimmer.”
During a regular morning swim, Power was pulled into a rip tide. He was turning back, but “only continued to drift further away.” By the time medics were able to retrieve him from the water, Power had died, Power Pattisall said.
“He was doing what he loved with the woman he loved in the place that he loved to be,” she said.
Tom and Mary Ellen Power first opened the Cheese Shop on Prince George Street in 1973 and have been staples of the Williamsburg community ever since. The couple was recently awarded the prestigious Prentis Award by the College of William and Mary.
Power Pattisal said the family is still working on getting her mother home, but plans to hold a community event to celebrate her father’s legacy.
“We’re sad,” she said. “But we’re feeling blessed that he had this great passing in a place he really loved.”
Read a full statement later released by the family here.
This story was published in partnership with Southside Daily’s sister publication, WYDaily.com.
