Lucretia Romey

Lucretia Leonard Romey died peacefully on December 2, 2012 due to complications from Alzheimers Disease. Born in Akron, OH, she received her elementary and secondary school education at Akron's Old Trail School, receiving its Distinguished Alumni Award in 2001. She received an AB in Fine Arts from Indiana University in 1955. Lucretia was a talented artist specializing in painting, drawing and creating award-winning art quilts and was a published author. After leaving Indiana University she began a brilliant career as a painter, watercolorist, quilter, writer, and teacher, winning awards in major national art shows. She traveled widely, always with her sketchbook in hand, moving to England with her Navy husband Bill in 1955. The Romeys moved to Washington, DC and on to Berkeley, CA where Bill earned his Ph.D. in Geology. In 1962 Bill began teaching Science Education and Geology at Syracuse University, and she did further studies in sculpture. They were on a research leave in Norway in 1967 and 1968, spending summers working in the Lofoten Islands in the Arctic, where she continued sketching and painting. She was in Boulder during the summers of 1964 and 1965 while her husband Bill worked with the Earth Science Curriculum Project (ESCP). From 1969 to 1972 he directed ESCP and the family lived in Boulder. She joined the Artisennes, who ran the Mustard Seed Art Gallery in Boulder, and was a member of the Boulder Art Association, becoming Vice-President. Her work won purchase awards in juried exhibits of the Boulder Art Association, the Cheyenne Art Association, the Designer Craftsmen. Her works appeared in shows in Central City and Golden as well as in Boulder. She instituted a program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research of hanging monthly art exhibits on their walls. Several articles in the Boulder Daily Camera described her work in those years. She began to do fabric wall hangings ranging from landscapes to abstract pieces and quilts. She was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma fraternity, was the art editor of their magazine The Key, and received an alumni achievement award in 1996, also serving on the board of the CU Kappa chapter. Reluctantly leaving Boulder, she lived from 1972 to 1993 in Canton, NY, where Bill chaired the Department of Geology and Geography at St. Lawrence University. There she earned honors in many art shows, ran an art gallery and taught art at St. Lawrence University and several northern New York community colleges. They took numerous academic trips to Europe, often with groups of students. The Romeys returned to the Boulder area for meetings of the Geological Society of America, and their daughter Cricket got her bachelor's degree in theater arts at the University of Colorado and remained in Colorado for some time as a model and actress. Following her husband Bill to England; Washington, DC; Berkeley, CA; Syracuse, NY; Norway; Boulder, CO; Canton, NY; Paris and Rouen, France; and finally East Orleans, MA on Cape Cod she always relished the changes and imbued in all she knew a love of exploration and appreciation for all the joys of life. While her husband lectured on expedition cruise ships from 1991 to 2006 she made quilted wall hangings and painted watercolors of the Antarctic, Arctic, and mid-Atlantic and Caribbean islands, as well as of South America, Asia, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific islands. She visited over 100 countries. In addition to her husband of 57 years, Lucretia leaves her daughters Catherine Keener, an actress and model, Gretchen Romey-Tanzer, a fiber artist and head of the art department at Cape Cod Academy, son William L. Romey, Professor of Biology at Potsdam State University, seven grandchildren, sister Polly Keener of Akron, OH, and several nieces, nephews, and cousins. She will be greatly missed by all. For online condolences and an expanded version of this obituary please visit nickersonfunerals. com.