Gertrude Schley


SHARON - Gertrude Schley, 97, of New York City and Sharon died peacefully at home on Jan. 14, 2008. She had resided at her Connecticut home since 1928.

Miss Schley as born in Far Hills, N.J., on May 2, 1910, the younger daughter of the late Jane (Seney) and Grant Barney Schley. She was a graduate of the Nightingale-Bamford School, class of 1927. She served as president of the Alumni Board and then as trustee.

During World War II, Miss Schley put in long hours at Sharon Hospital, where she worked as a nurse's aide in support of a medical staff that had been depleted due to wartime needs for military doctors. After the war she continued her hospital work (she was honored in 1977 for longevity of service), while finding time to volunteer with the local Girl Scouts for 10 years.

Miss Schley was a passionate equestrian. She frequently took part in riding and driving events locally and throughout the East. She was a member of the Green Mountain Horse Association and from 1948 to 1950 she competed successfully in the grueling 100-mile endurance ride sponsored by the association in southern Vermont. She was the proud owner of three prize-winning Morgan horses. The trophy cases in the stable were filled with ribbons. She never met a horse who didnt like her.

Always a lover of the country, and a lover of animals large and small, Miss Schley volunteered throughout the 1980's and 1990's at the Little Guild of St. Francis in West Cornwall, an organization devoted to finding good homes for discarded dogs and cats. She never met a dog who didn't like her.

Miss Schley was a longtime member of The Colony Club of New York, until her resignation in 2006 for health reasons.

An Episcopalian by birth, she worshiped at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin and the Church of the Transfiguration in New York City before moving to Christ Church, Sharon, where she was active as a lay reader, sang in the choir, and served on the vestry.

Miss Schley was preceded in death by her parents and an older sister, Jane Schley Clark of New York and Sharon, who died in 1963.

She is survived by many friends and acquaintances and by her nephew, The Rev. Walter D. Clark and his wife, Sarah Locke Clark, of Maurertown, Va.; two great-nephews, Stephen Seney Clark and his wife, Lisa, of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Benjamin Locke Clark and his wife, Kimberly, of Rockport, Texas; and a great-grandniece, Jae Cameron Clark, also of Rockport.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made either to Christ Church Episcopal, PO Box 1778, Sharon, CT 06069 or The Nightingale-Bamford School, 20 East 92nd St., New York, NY 10128.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated on Saturday, Jan. 19, at 10:30 a.m. at Christ Church Episcopal, South Main Street, Sharon. Burial will be in the spring.

The Kenny Funeral Home in Sharon has charge of the arrangements.

"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord... for they rest from their labors.

Latest News

Selectmen suspend town clerk’s salary during absence

North Canaan Town Hall

Photo by Riley Klein

NORTH CANAAN — “If you’re not coming to work, why would you get paid?”

Selectman Craig Whiting asked his fellow selectmen this pointed question during a special meeting of the Board on March 12 discussing Town Clerk Jean Jacquier, who has been absent from work for more than a month. She was not present at the meeting.

Keep ReadingShow less
Dan Howe’s time machine
Dan Howe at the Kearcher-Monsell Gallery at Housatonic Valley Regional High School.
Natalia Zukerman

“Every picture begins with just a collection of good shapes,” said painter and illustrator Dan Howe, standing amid his paintings and drawings at the Kearcher-Monsell Gallery at Housatonic Valley Regional High School. The exhibit, which opened on Friday, March 7, and runs through April 10, spans decades and influences, from magazine illustration to portrait commissions to imagined worlds pulled from childhood nostalgia. The works — some luminous and grand, others intimate and quiet — show an artist whose technique is steeped in history, but whose sensibility is wholly his own.

Born in Madison, Wisconsin, and trained at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, Howe’s artistic foundation was built on rigorous, old-school principles. “Back then, art school was like boot camp,” he recalled. “You took figure drawing five days a week, three hours a day. They tried to weed people out, but it was good training.” That discipline led him to study under Tom Lovell, a renowned illustrator from the golden age of magazine art. “Lovell always said, ‘No amount of detail can save a picture that’s commonplace in design.’”

Keep ReadingShow less
Reading between the lines with Jon Kopita

Jon Kopita reading between the lines at the David M. Hunt Library.

Natalia Zukerman

Jon Kopita’s work, with its repetitive, meticulous hand-lettering, is an exercise in obsession. Through repetition, words become something else entirely — more texture than text. Meaning at once fades and expands as lines, written over and over, become a meditation, a form of control that somehow liberates.

“I’m a rule follower, so I like rules, but I also like breaking them,” said Kopita, as we walked through his current exhibit, on view at the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village until March 20.

Keep ReadingShow less