SHEILA PLATT

PLATT--Sheila M., On May 15 Sheila Maynard Platt, of New York, NY, died peacefully, at her home in Manhattan, at the age of 81. The cause of death was heart failure, brought on by the auto immune disease, scleroderma, which she endured with dignity and a bright, resolute spirit, for many years. Sheila was a child of New York City, and died only a few blocks from where she was born, on August 1, 1936, at Doctors' Hospital, the only daughter of Eileen Burden and Walter Maynard, an investment banker, and a former governor of the New York Stock Exchange. She could have chosen an easy and predictable existence in the old neighborhood, but instead packed her life with adventure, discovery and risk, traveling widely to postings around the world with her devoted diplomat husband, Nicholas Platt. In Taiwan, during the early nineteen sixties, she shared a cup of tea with Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai Shek, and learned to speak fluent Mandarin, a language which she kept up for the rest of her life. Living in Hong Kong, during the tumultuous years of the Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution, she began her long and distinguished career in the field of crisis management and psychiatric social work as a volunteer caseworker helping to process the floods of refugees who were coming across the border from China. For the rest of her long life, in addition to raising three large, loving, and sometimes unruly sons, and ministering to her expanding brood of devoted grandchildren, Sheila continued to work on behalf of the suffering and the less fortunate -- placing Korean orphans with adoptive parents during her time in Tokyo, serving as a mental health advisor to the University Health Clinic of Zambia, and the US embassy in Manila, when her husband was posted as the US ambassador to both countries. Later, in New York, she authored a series of ground breaking manuals and workshops for staff members on crisis management and post traumatic stress, which are still in use at the United Nations, UNICEF and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. The manuals drew on personal experience with embattled caregivers at refugee camps in Hong Kong, the Philippines, the Afghan border and Bosnia. Sheila was a loyal and proud alumna of the Brearley School, in New York City, Miss Porter's School, in Farmington, Connecticut, and Radcliffe College, where she studied for three years, before making the brash decision to marry her husband, and set sail around the world. She would later earn a bachelor of arts degree from Trinity University, in Washington DC, in 1971, and a Masters Degree in Social Work from The Catholic University School of Social Work, in 1973. Sheila gave her time to many causes and institutions throughout her life, including the Austen Riggs Center, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where she was a board member for many years, and Community and Family Services International, in Manila, a relief organization which she helped to found, and would serve for many years, as a board member and patron. She was also a board member of Scenic Hudson, and a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, in New York City. She is survived by her husband of 61 years, Nicholas Platt, her sons, Adam, Oliver, and Nicholas Jr., all of New York City, her daughters-in-law, Kate Platt, Camilla Campbell, and Robyn Watts, her gaggle of grandchildren, Lily, George, Clare, Noah, Henry, Nico, Jane, Penelope, and her two brothers, John Maynard and Walter Maynard Jr, of Groton, MA and New York City. There will be a memorial service for Sheila at the Brick Presbyterian Church, at 1140 Park Avenue on June 1st, at 11:00am. In lieu of flowers, please direct your generosity to the Sheila and Nicholas Platt Endowment for Public Policy Programs at the Asia Society, 725 Park Ave. NY, NY 10021.