Lynn was born on February 5, 1954 in St. James, New York. It was there she spent her childhood, excelling at school and athletics. She was a member of the first graduating class of Harbor Country Day School in St. James where she was the top scholar and athlete, earning the Trustees Prize at her graduation. From there she attended the Northampton School for Girls, achieving the highest academic rank in the school and recognized as a National Merit Scholar. She attended Colorado College, graduating with a B.A. in Political Science, Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Lynn was never one to bring any attention to her remarkable accomplishments. She was reserved, genuine and without guile. She had a radiant smile that powered a quick and infectious sense of humor that she instinctually used to spark laughter or to diffuse difficult situations.
Lynn was unabashed about expressing her point of view with disarming frankness and insight. Her sense of values and integrity were unassailable. She was well respected for her leadership as Chairman of the Cornwall Consolidated School Board in northwest Connecticut, and on the Boards of the Cornwall Conservation Trust and the Cornwall Library Association. Her membership in two local book groups and weekly Scrabble games were evidence of her love of words, reading, and the expression of her thoughts that were out of the ordinary and well-stated. It was a common day for Lynn to play tennis with friends, work hard in her beautiful gardens, and purge the day with a long swim across Cream Hill Lake. Evenings were spent either immersed in a book, working a crossword puzzle, or pestering her husband.
Of all aspects of this life that brought her joy, Lynn’s greatest pleasure was her family. Lynn met Hugh at Colorado College and they married in 1976. Their children Hope, Rusty, Ted, and Tyler soon followed. Lynn’s children and her husband received the benefit of being raised by a mother and a spouse who combined her humor and strong sense of values to develop individuals who are kind, honest, and loving as she was. Her love of her husband, children, and grandchildren had no bounds, a love she expressed by a loyal and active interest in their lives. While Lynn made them work and study, she tempered her discipline by playing board games, pitching baseballs, and rolling about on the ground with her children or several of her eight grandchildren. Lynn intuitively knew when to intervene or stand aside to let mistakes educate. She was fiercely competitive, even with her children, and they loved her for it. It was a wonder to see Lynn together with her three sisters Gay, Sandy, and Marian and the love they held for each other. They easily fell into childhood rank and mannerisms, yet Lynn would scatter them in terror when her competitive nature surfaced over some slight she felt in a game of cards or Scrabble.
It is difficult to convey the core of this extraordinary woman who endured two of life’s most daunting challenges. With unfailing grace and remarkable courage, Lynn shouldered the death of her son Rusty in 2015 and the glioblastoma that took her life on May 7, 2018. Lynn was not in a battle with her brain cancer. Rather, she treated it as an inconvenient intrusion in her life, and she simply adapted to it with resilience and without complaint. While these two events cast a shroud over the last three years of her life, there is so much more about her that defined how she lived.
Lynn’s death has unraveled some of the fabric that held her close-knit family together, and we feel diminished by her absence. Her deep love of family and our love for her have made this a hard grief. In time, however, we trust that our memories of her remarkable life will eclipse grief. At times, we will miss her more than we can bear, yet we are thankful for this life she shared so generously with us all. Now may she be at peace, with no more hard challenges to conquer.
Our family would like to thank a large community of friends and neighbors for their consistent kindness, care and support of us over the past three years. We are convinced that, as a result of all the love that embraced us, Lynn far outlived her prognosis. We felt secured by all of you and lifted above the worries. We have experienced the best of humanity.