Betty Jane Duffy

Betty Jane Duffy, 82 of Dodge Farm Road, Washington, CT died June 18, 2012 at her home.
Born July 13, 1929, in Brooklyn NY, she was the daughter of Carl Heinrich Ruescher and Gladys Nadine McCauley.
She married Samuel Wesley Gladding in 1954. She married John Duffy in 1969.
Ma Duffy was an accomplished artist and while she lived in Lenox MA was friends with Norman Rockwell. Her painting of George Washington arriving at Judge Pickett's house (the oldest house in Washington) hangs in Washington Town Hall. Her paintings depicted stories in the American primitive art style.
She is survived by two daughters: Carlene Kincaid and her husband Jim Kincaid, Lenox MA; Susan Somerset of Washington CT; three sons: Samuel Wesley Gladding and his wife Patty Gladding, Washington CT; Everett Gladding and Laurie Breton, Washington CT; Jason Gladding and his wife Rhonda Jaacks, Lakeville CT; and 11 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held on Friday July 13, 2012 at 10 a.m. at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Washington, CT.
Mary Rita Ann Nania
Mary Rita Ann Nania, of 21 Granite Ave., Canaan, and a resident of Geer for the last four years, died on Sunday morning, July 8, 2012, five months short of her 95th birthday, of natural causes.
She was not a native of the Northwest Corner.
Her parents, Camille Albert Pothier and Genevieve Veronica Kelly, met and married in Rhode Island in 1915, but two years later, her father, who had learned the art of dyeing textiles from his father, was offered a job as foreman of a Troy, N.Y., textile plant; and Mary was born on December 6, 1917 in Troy.
A decade later, while she was still in grade school, her father was engaged, as a "consultant" to set up ¬the new dyeing machines at the textile mill in Great Barrington, MA; and the family moved into a rented house on the site of what is now Berkshire Bank on Main Street.
She loved Great Barrington, but a year later, her dad got a new assignment, and the family moved back to Rhode Island where her father had been hired as foreman at the Bradford Dyeing Association in Bradford, R.I.
The family really didn't want to move again; and her mother made an offer on the 77-acre Diamond Hill Farm in nearby Ashaway before her father even had a chance to see it.
Mary was enrolled in the college course at Westerly High School, played side-center on the girls' basketball team and attended the University of Rhode Island. She left college during the war (WWII), to work as an inspector of airplane propellers at Hamilton Standard. She found more defects than her boss wanted. She also made a friend at work who introduced her to the man she would marry.
During the course of the War, Mary overheard a phone conversation while using a party line telephone and gave information to the FBI, which led to the arrest of a German spy, the cook at a Westerly, R.I., inn.
On November 25, 1943, she married, S. Joseph Nania, a Yale College graduate, a concert violinist who had lost his hearing, and the music supervisor in the Stonington (CT) School system. They had five children in the next 10 years and lived in an apartment in Pawcatuck, CT.
In early 1955, her husband got a phone call from Bill Meader, a friend and classmate at Yale. There was an opening for a music teacher at the Housatonic Valley Regional High School. He got the job, and in August of 1955 the family bought its first house in Canaan CT.
Three years later, Joseph Nania died suddenly of a heart attack, leaving his wife Mary a widow with five children, the oldest of whom was 13.
Though tempted to move back to Rhode Island and the support of an extended family, Mary decided that the Northwest Corner would be a better place to raise her children. She found what would become an 18-year job as a teller at the then Canaan National Bank. She also worked at a number of part time jobs, once serving as the local reporter for the Lakeville Journal.
Mary was active in the community. She was a charter member of both the Town Recreation committee and Civil Defense Team. She helped organize and served as president of Canaan's Little Theater Group. She and her brothers were avid tennis players in their early years; and in middle age, she tried to learn to play golf; but after several lessons, the pro gently suggested she consider another sport. She won trophies at the Geer Fishing Derbies for the largest trout caught and for the most trout caught.
She had both knees replaced in her late sixties, one of which was again replaced when she was 84. She drove a car till she was 91 and never had an accident, though she did have numerous speeding tickets. She was a cook who sold her pies to a local restaurant and a mother and grandmother who baked the cookies, cakes and pizzas her children and grandchildren will never forget.
She was ever generous and giving and never really considered or accepted the fact that she herself was poor. She regularly contributed from what little she had to all she thought to be in need and passionately defended any she considered to be downtrodden. She took in and became the legal guardian of a high school girl whose parents had both died suddenly.
Mary Nania should principally be remembered, however, for her strength of spirit. For despite the many challenges to health and well-being she was served, she never weakened. With firm resolve, faith in God, and the unfailing help and encouragement of her sister-in-law, Mary A. Nania, and other friends and neighbors, she paid off the mortgage and shepherded all five of her children from school and college to careers, marriages and families of their own.
She was predeceased by her parents and her brothers, Camille and Gerard Pother, and her son, Peter P. Nania. She is survived by her sons Anthony J. Nania of Falls Village, CT and Gerard F. Nania of Old Saybrook, CT, her daughters Tomassina Nania Panepinto of Altamont, N.Y., and Maria Nania Stillman of Brooklyn, N.Y., two sons-in-law, William Panepinto of Altamont, N.Y., and Richard Stillman of Brooklyn, N.Y., two daughters-in-law, Lynn Clayton Nania of Falls Village, Diane Grady Nania of Old Saybrook, and eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Calling hours were held at Newkirk's Funeral Home on Wednesday July 11, 2012 and a Mass of Christian Burial will be held at St. Joseph's Church on Friday, July 13, 2012 at 11 AM. Though flowers are also welcome, contributions in lieu of flowers may be made to the Northwest Corner Chore Service.