Louise Tracy

Waterford - Louise Beverly (Newbury) Tracy, 95, of Waterford and Groton, died peacefully Saturday, June 30, 2007 at her home in Waterford after a brief illness.

A Groton native and 1930 graduate of Williams Memorial Institute (WMI), she was born Jan. 11, 1912 to Horace Manchester Newbury and Annie Bradford (Stoll) Newbury of Groton.

After graduating from WMI, she completed a business program at New London Business College before beginning a career that included administrative work for the Bacon Banjo Company in Groton, the Groton Utility Company, the lawyers Curtis Morgan, Griswold Morgan, and Edmund O'Brien, and Verkad's Nursery. In the early 1950s she was hired to work in the medical records unit of Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, where she worked until her retirement in June 1977.

She was married June 17, 1939 in Groton to Edgar Herbert Tracy of Waterford and raised three children there during the first half of their 68 years of marriage.

The granddaughter of Groton sea captain and whaler Christopher Newbury, who was listed as a California Pioneer for his long residence in pre-statehood California, she proudly embraced her coastal heritage and was a lifelong sailor who enjoyed fishing, clamming, and scalloping in Niantic Bay and Jupiter Point. In fact, it was her energetic scalloping technique that first attracted the notice of her future husband, Edgar, when she was scalloping at Mago Point.

Though slight of build, she had a feisty, buoyant spirit, boundless energy, a quick wit, and a ready, infectious laugh. Many people remembered her tireless, smiling, and enthusiastic work pushing countless wheelbarrows of dirt during hot summer days while helping her husband build their home in the late 1940s.

Since her retirement, she has enjoyed traveling to Marathon, Fla., for many winter stays, as well as literally traveling around the world to visit her children in such far-flung places as Germany and Singapore.

She was predeceased by her parents, her siblings Horace, Charley, Irwin, Ruth, Allen, and Tracy, and their spouses, and a son, Thomas George Newbury Tracy.

She is survived by her husband, Edgar H. Tracy, of Waterford; a sister, Flossie (Newbury) Krohn of Waterford; a son, William D. Tracy of Georgia, and a daughter, Ann (Tracy) Sweat of Port Townsend, Wash.; a granddaughter, Katherine Ann Tracy of Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; and numerous nieces and nephews.

The family will welcome callers between 9 and 10 a.m. Friday, July 6th, followed by a memorial service at 10 a.m.; both will be held at Fulton-Theroux Funeral Home, 181 Ocean Ave., New London with an interment immediately afterwards at the West Neck Cemetery on Great Neck Road, Waterford.

In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to Hospice and Palliative Care of Connecticut VNA by Masonicare, 12 Case Street, Suite 316, Norwich, CT 06360.