Mary Connie Lyon Comfort died May 21, 2016 at home in Essex Meadows, Connecticut at age 81. Mary Connie was born in Huron, South Dakota; her family left the Dakota dust bowl for the state of Washington shortly after she was born, completing the Lyon family’s participation in the slowing westward immigration of the 20th century. As a farm child in Centralia, Washington, Mary Connie was an active 4-H Club member, winning a trip to the International 4-H Club Congress held at Chicago in 1951. She studied drama at the University of Washington where she received her BA degree in 1953. Hired at KING-TV after her graduation, she served as “Talent Secretary” to the roster of newly emerging TV personalities on the local scene. She married William Wistar Comfort of Haverford, Pennsylvania, in May, 1957. They moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts where Wis was a Peirce Instructor in Mathematics at Harvard. Mary Connie secured a position as an assistant to Dr. James Gamble, who was doing research on the early returns of the birth control pills from trials underway in Puerto Rico. While in Cambridge, she also worked part-time as social secretary to Lily Saarinen, sculptress and local celebrity. After two children arrived, the couple moved to Rochester, New York where Mary Connie participated as director and actor in the Blackfriars Community Theater. There she established a travelling Punch and Judy puppet show booked frequently into outdoor park venues and children’s birthday parties. When Wis accepted a position at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mary Connie enrolled as a graduate student in Theater at Smith College. She found part-time work with the Amherst Weekly newspaper writing theater reviews of local productions. In subsequent years, when living in Middletown, CT; Montreal, Canada; Athens, Greece; and Florence, Italy, Mary Connie taught English literature and drama. Most notably: she was part of a feminist collective, establishing the first family planning clinic in Middletown and serving as its first director. She also served as a corporator for Middlesex Memorial Hospital and as the president of the Parent-Teachers Association for the Independent Day School. In Higganum she established “The Hopping Birds” 4-H Club; in 1981 she ran the East Lyme Marathon in under four hours. A “convinced Friend”, Mary Connie was active in Quaker Meetings in Rochester, New York; Amherst, Massachusetts; Vassalboro, Maine and Middletown, Connecticut. She served for many years as a board member of the American Friends Service Committee of New England Regional Meeting and as a member of the Permanent Board of the New England Yearly Meeting. For two decades she served as a career counsellor to a wide range of Wesleyan undergraduates, specializing in pre-medical advising. Off campus, she was a technical advisor to the Connecticut Council on the Humanities. In her last years with Wesleyan she directed the Honors College, supervising the Wesleyan Prose and Poetry reading series housed at the Russell House. Moving to Old Lyme in 2004, Mary Connie established a Film Series at the Phoebe Noyes Griffith library. With a sustained membership of over 100, the club brought documentaries and classic movies to the library on a regular basis for several years. She and Wistar moved to Essex Meadows in 2011, where Mary Connie was instrumental in starting a documentary movie series. Also while at Essex Meadows she administered an active Theater Club, arranging for transportation and tickets for fellow theater goers. She is survived by her husband of over 59 years, William Wistar Comfort II, and by their two children, Martha Wistar Comfort and Howard Comfort III; by her grandchildren, Laura Elsbeth Coffin, William Peyton Coffin, Henry Wistar Comfort, and Samuel Garrett Comfort; and by her siblings: Nancy Lavona Westberg of Kalispell, Montana; Freeman James Lyon of Centralia Washington; and Susan Jane Wold of Lucy Creek, South Carolina. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Middletown Friends Meeting, c/o Holder, 29 Long Lane, Middletown, CT 06457.
Published in The Hartford Courant from May 25 to May 26, 2016
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MARY CONNIE L. COMFORT MAT’70
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