Sheila Spalding

Sheila Spalding
Sheila Spalding, 100 years of age, died peacefully of natural causes at her home in Portland, Connecticut on November 22, 2025.
Sheila is survived by her children and their spouses. A son, David Spalding and his wife Linda; a daughter, Helen Spalding and her husband Richard; and two grandchildren, Gwen and Devon Spalding. She was predeceased by her husband, Peter Spalding.
Sheila was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1925 to a Scottish father and a Welsh mother. Her father, a merchant marine engineer, died at sea when his ship was torpedoed at the onset of World War II; at that time, Sheila was a teenager. Her mother and aunt raised her in Cardiff during the Battle of Britain, doing their best to protect her as the bombs fell. She vividly remembers the many nights spent underground in the local tube station and coming out in the morning to see which houses had been destroyed. Upon graduation from high school, Sheila enlisted in the Women's Royal English Navy where she served for three years as an airplane parts supply clerk at several naval air stations. While in the navy she met her husband to be, Peter Spalding, also a member of the Royal Navy.
After her discharge from active duty, she pursued two years of study at the Cardiff Culinary Institute. She then went to work as a bookkeeper at the office of a local power company. In 1948 she and Peter, at the time a medical student, married. Their first child, a son, was born in 1951, a daughter followed in 1955. Sheila chose to stay at home to care for them.
In 1958 the family immigrated to America and chose to live in Norwich, Connecticut where Peter worked as a psychiatrist at Norwich State Hospital. As was the custom then, the family resided on the grounds of the large hospital among the other doctors' families, many of whom had emigrated to America in the 1950s. It was an exciting time as this tight-knit group of young multi-ethnic families found themselves living together free from the poverty of post-war Europe. In 1964 the family moved to Portland, Connecticut where Peter established a private medical practice and, as she had been trained, Sheila assisted in the office and managed "the books."
Sheila lived an active life and enjoyed physical exercise, skiing, synchronized swimming, ballroom dancing, gardening and tai chi. She was a volunteer at Middlesex Hospital and, in later years, dedicated her time to knitting caps for newborns in the maternity unit. She was a lover of the natural world and frequently spoke in an almost childlike way of the simple beauty of flowers, trees and the clouds in the sky. She fondly spoke of her pets, a poodle, Beaugeste, and cats, Adam and Eve, but vowed never to have another because the pain of losing them was too great. Sheila was fond of dining at her favorite Portland restaurant, Campagne, always enjoying a Manhatten, her favorite cocktail the last of which she drank with gusto at her 100th birthday party two months before her death.
Funeral services will be held privately at the request of the family.