Veronica Phoenix Peterson

Veronica Claire Phoenix Peterson, 101, died peacefully and with acceptance on
January 7th at home.
Ronnie was born September 1, 1924, in Chicago, the daughter of Edward and Veronica (Shannon) Phoenix. The family later moved to Santa Barbara, California, before settling in Mount Vernon, NY, where she grew up.
She was admitted to Radcliffe College, where she met Arthur Peterson, a student at nearby MIT.
She and "Pete" enjoyed the club scene in Boston during the swing era, her appreciation of the music enhanced by her status as a founder of Radio Radcliffe, having previously been a pioneering woman disc jockey on Harvard's Crimson Radio network. She graduated from Radcliffe, but Pete left school to serve overseas in World War II, after which they lived in Boston while he finished his degree, and they began raising the first of an eventual six children.
They set up their first permanent home in Pennsylvania, during which years her parents were killed in the Connecticut Floods of 1955 and her little brother Ted joined them as the eldest of a growing family.
In 1956, Ronnie, Pete and their family moved to the Adirondacks, where she spent a half century in the small, welcoming village of Star Lake, raising a family that, including Ted, numbered seven children.
Their idyllic life there was changed in 1970 with the death of their son, Tony, in an automobile accident, after which they moved to Tonawanda, NY, but maintained their Adirondack home first as a vacation, then as a retirement home.
During their years in Tonawanda, she and Pete became members and executive officers in The Compassionate Friends, a self-help group for bereaved parents. As officers of the national organization, they visited and helped to organize chapters around the country. While vacationing, they also visited TCF organizations in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
While in Tonawanda, Ronnie served at the Voluntary Action Center, the New York State Welfare Conference, and on Radcliffe's alumnae board. She interviewed prospective Harvard and Radcliffe students on behalf of both colleges, a role she continued upon their return to Star Lake in 1980.
In Star Lake, she served as a substitute teacher at Clifton Fine Central School and as a instructor in the CCD religious education program. Her service to the Catholic Church included work as a Eucharistic Minister and other actions for which she was awarded the "Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice" papal medal, in recognition of outstanding service to the church.
Widowed in 1989, she continued her service to the community, including a position on the board of the Clifton Fine Hospital where she helped fight calls from Albany for financial cuts that would have robbed the isolated area of medical services.
In 2006, she left the Adirondacks to live in Mount Vernon, later moving in with her daughter, Lois, in Ossining.
Veronica Peterson was predeceased by her husband, Arthur F. Peterson Jr., two of their sons, Arthur Frederick III and Anthony William, her brother, Edward Arthur Phoenix, and her grandson, Ryan Anthony Allen. She is survived by three daughters, Frances Allen (Parkersburg, WV), Lois Mariano (Ossining, NY) and Martha Meier (Buena Vista, CO), a son, Michael Peterson (Lebanon, NH), a niece, Kelly Wheeler (Radford, VA), a nephew, Kevin Phoenix (Essex, MA), and numerous grandchildren, grandnephews and nieces, great grandchildren and a great-great granddaughter.
A wake will be held on Sunday, January 11th, from 3pm-5pm at Coffey Funeral Home,
91 North Broadway, Tarrytown, NY. The funeral Mass will be private with the burial taking place later in Star Lake, NY. In lieu of flowers, those who wish to celebrate her memory may make a gift in support of the Tony Peterson Memorial Scholarship at SUNY Potsdam,
c/o Potsdam College Foundation, 44 Pierrepont Avenue, Potsdam, NY 13676 or by visiting potsdam.edu/memorial. For questions or to make a gift by phone, call 315-267-3054.