Helen Gaylord Townsend
Latest News
Auto Repair
Blinds
Building/Remodeling
Floor Refinishing
Insulation
Landscaping
Landscaping
Lightning Rods
Moving
Overhead Doors
FALLS VILLAGE — Helen was born in 1931 in Rockford, Illinois, the youngest of the four children of Mildred Ingersoll Gaylord and Robert Gaylord. Her father ran the family company Ingersoll Milling Machine, one of the largest machine tool companies in the world. She was mostly raised by a nurse, Fern with whom she remained in close contact with until Fern’s death in the eighties.
Helen had always wanted a horse but her parents insisted she start with a donkey to be sure she was serious. She was and so began a lifelong love of horses and riding. She continued to ride until age 86 when her last horse Lark died.
She attended Keith Country Day School, Emma Willard and finally Westlake School before beginning Stanford in 1949. She graduated Stanford with a Speech and Drama and a Minor in Dance in 1953. During the summers of the years she was at Stanford she attended the Perry Mansfield Camp in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Since Charlotte Perry and Portia Mansfield were running the camp at that time the Steamboat Historical Society did an Oral History with her in the nineties. After graduating from Stanford she moved first to Pittsburgh to do graduate work at Carnegie Mellon then New York City to pursue a career in theatre and dance. During that time she studied with Jose Limon Dance Company. NYC was where she met her future husband David Townsend when he knocked on her door by mistake on his way to a party in her building. They married in 1960 and would be married for 62 years.
Helen and David moved to his aunt’s 200 plus year old house in Falls Village in 1963 and would become fixtures in that community for the next 54 years. Many wonderful summers were spent there with Joan Burdick (Helen’s best friend) and her family. The Burdicks would become a second family to Helen and her family. Helen started her own Dance Studio, Dance Adventures in the Grange Hall in Falls Village.
She also served on the Board of TriArts a local theatre group with New York connections. She had roles in many of their productions through the years such as; Oklahoma, Barnum, Fiddler on the Roof and the Music Man. Helen volunteered for Reading for the Blind in Litchfield using her wonderful speaking voice to help others.
Helen and David spent many summers exploring the East Coast with friends and family on their boat La Bayadare (named after a Ballet in honor of Helen).
Their connection to New York City remained unbroken as they spent time in the city with relatives and friends and supporting the Paul Taylor Dance Company and various other theatre and dance productions through the years.
Helen lived for her children, grandchildren and many pets. They had a series of Labradors, Scotties, Australian Shepherds, horses and cats. One Australian Shepherd she rescued from a ranch in Montana after he broke his leg and was discov ered to be deaf. Max lived the next 13 years in Falls Village and was always faithful and grateful to Helen. Her support for causes she believed in (theatre, dance, environment, animals, the Democratic Party and abortion rights) was ongoing throughout her life.
On Dec. 24, 2022, Helen died with her family and her beloved rescue cat Nala by her side in Falmouth, Maine. She is survived by her husband David and daughter Lila (Portland, Maine), daughter Sheila (Golden, Colorado), granddaughter Claire Nimlos (Lakewood, Colorado) , granddaughter Danika Nimlos ( Pasadena , California).
Donations in lieu of flowers can be made to the animal rescue group of your choice.
Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.lindquistFuneralHome.com for the Townsend family.
Related Stories
Get Local News Delivered To Your Inbox
Subscribe to receive stories reported for, by, and about our neighbors, on the issues affecting you.
By signing up you agree to our
privacy policy
.
Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.