Aline Senior

1956 - 2020

Gales Ferry - Aline Senior, 63, passed away April 5, 2020, at her home of natural causes. She was born in Teaneck, N.J. June 4, 1956, and lived most of her life in Niantic and Gales Ferry.

Aline graduated from East Lyme High School at the top of her class in 1974 where she was an avid crew member, the coxswain, in her high school rowing club and appeared in a team picture in a collage in a Sports Illustrated issue on women in sports. She went on to get a Bachelor of the Arts in Classics at Wesleyan University, taking her junior year study abroad in Rome, and next attending University of California, Los Angeles master's program before ultimately deciding that Los Angeles did not agree with her and she came back to Connecticut. Aline worked at and retired from Electric Boat in inventory control where her hard work, intelligence, and wit made her popular with her co-workers.

Aline was an excellent cook and particularly liked baking pies and cookies of all sorts. She enjoyed gardening and picking vegetables and fruits-apples, pears, peaches, strawberries, raspberries, etc.-at local farms with family members. One effect of her time in Rome was her passion for coffee; she rose often at dawn to grind her own beans, drank coffee black and dense, and made her own iced coffee, all in her own private ritual. An avid eater of chocolate cookie dough when anyone was making cookies, she was also notorious at Thanksgiving for sneaking the crisp skin off the hot, roasted turkey.

Aline loved to laugh and lived an active life, walked miles each day, for years attended aerobics and spin classes, and was a prolific storyteller who possessed an amazing memory for the most minute details. She also volunteered as a tutor in a reading program for children. She was a fanatic devotee of crosswords and sudoku puzzles, which she did in local newspapers, in books, and on-line, any place that she could find one, and enjoyed playing games such as Monopoly, Life, Risk, Scrabble, chess, and cards. A constant frequenter of the Gales Ferry library, Aline read with a catholic breadth throughout her life, especially mysteries and mystery series, and had good recommendations for anyone who asked.

A devoted daughter, sister, and aunt, she had a quirky personal style which expressed itself in her gifts to her nieces and nephews, for whom she was a frequent babysitter when they were young and who fondly remember holiday meals and Christmas tree decorating at her house. Aline selflessly offered help and service to her family in times of difficulty, taking care of her mother and father during their final years and staying with her brother and his wife to help after his severe illness and long hospital stay.

Aline was predeceased by her parents, Bill and Georgiana, both at 90, and is survived by her brother Bill and wife Pat; her sisters, Alayne, Alicia and husband Brad, and five nephews and nieces, Alexis, Justin, Mackenzie, Evan, and Lily.

No services will be held.