Elizabeth Alexandra Freiin von Stackelberg died in her mother’s arms on November 26, 2016 at home in Irasburg. “Like a dandelion, she just floated away.”
The eldest child of Nicholas Temple and Brigitta Regina von Stackelberg, Alexandra was born in Germany in February 1963 and arrived in Vermont with her parents later that year.
The first place they lived was located above the Albany Town dump. Her mother shot rats in the yard to keep them from Alexandra’s cradle. This convinced them to speedily move to Irasburg, a place that Alexandra was to consider her true home for the rest of her life, and finally to Brooklyn, New York. During summers, while her parents worked, Alexandra lived in Irasburg with Clare and Barbara Phillips, who were her second set of loving parents. At the age of five Alexandra was diagnosed with leukemia, marking the start of a lifelong battle with cancer that she was to face with breathtaking courage and dignity. Relocating to Paris, France, she was enrolled in a pioneering medical trial in immunotherapy at the Institut Gustave Roussy, where under the care of Dr. Leon Swartzenberg she made history as one of the first children to be cured of leukemia. She grew up in France, attending the Lycée Hoche in Versailles, before returning to Albany, Vermont to live with her grandmother Ellen Biddle von Stackelberg and attend Craftsbury Academy (Class of ’82). A fluent French and German speaker, she graduated with a degree in Russian from St. Lawrence University before moving to New York to start her career in international finance. Her focus, dedication and concern for her clients resulted in a successful career beginning with Manufacturers Hanover, before moving on to Standard and Poors, and finally Fiduciary Trust where she celebrated twenty years of service in 2015. It was at Manny Hanny in 1987 that she met her partner, Edward Jones of Marblehead, Massachusetts and Long Island, with whom she was to spend twenty-five years until his death in 2011. They were blessed with a daughter, Lorelei Jane Temple, in 2001, and moved to Brooklyn, to the same neighbourhood that Alexandra had lived in when she was a small child. She was a devoted mother, and her determination to be there for her daughter sustained her through the difficult times that followed. Alexandra was a warm-hearted, loving and generous woman with a puckish sense of humour. She was also supremely unselfish and empathic. Her desire to help and nurture extended beyond her family and friends, touching everybody she met. She had an exceptional gift for friendship and her deep loyalty inspired all who knew her. She will be dearly missed.
The funeral will take place at Irasburg United Church, Saturday December 10, at 10 am.
Online condolences may be made at www.curtis-britch.com
Arrangements are entrusted to the care of the Curtis-Britch-Converse-Rushford Funeral Home, locally family owned and operated.
Read More
