Jerelyn D Fields

Jerelyn Fields passed away peacefully in her Hartford home on April 11, 2024 surrounded by family and friends. Jerelyn was first and foremost a teacher. She had an impact not just on the hundreds of special education students she nurtured in her more than 40 years in the New Britain Consolidated School District, but on her friends and loved ones all over the country, who gave testament to the kindness, compassion and generosity she showed them – and taught them. "I learned compassion and acceptance from Jerelyn," said one friend. "She lived it." Jerelyn constantly practiced gratitude – even for the expressions of gratitude she got from others. Her long-time love described her as the kind of person who would thank you for a thank you note. She would stop in her tracks to help anyone in need, friend or not. She saw the best in everyone and especially revered family and friends.
Friends remember her wonderful laugh, and each has a favorite memory of shared laughter. One friend recalls the time they were driving and stopped the car suddenly because they thought someone was kidnapping a woman and putting her in a trunk except it turned out to be a golf bag. Or the time the police pulled over her and another friend and nearly gave them a ticket for driving through Hartford's West End honking their car horn at Christmas lights.
Nature was central to Jerelyn's life, whether at Herring Cove or Long Point in Provincetown, or kayaking on Lake Erie, or as another friend put it, "teaching me to pay attention to nature and all the signs it gives us." Another friend recalls her uncanny ability to find rocks in the shape of hearts. She loved to watch and count the shooting stars on August nights on the deck of Angel's Landing with her sister and friends. She was fascinated with birds, especially hawks, falcons and owls. Friends recently helped her fulfill a lifelong dream by arranging a visit with a falcon and a hawk, a moment captured on the local news.
After earning a B.S. and M.S. degrees in Special Education and a 6th Year Degree in Educational Leadership from Southern Connecticut State University, she spent a distinguished career in special education at the elementary and middle school level. For over four decades, she made her students feel heard and special. A former colleague says "her work has impacted this world by teaching her students and her peers to be positive, believe in themselves, to have an attitude of self- love, kindness and accept everyone for who they are. She helped create kind, independent and positive human beings in our world. Last year, two of her former students from her first-year teaching, met her for lunch; they were now adults, and she was over the moon to meet up with them again.
Jerelyn Fields was born in Proctor VT in 1951 on a January day so cold that she remembers her mother telling her there was frost on the inside walls of the small hospital. She grew up in Danbury, CT. She is survived by the love of her life and life partner of 14 years Maria Elena Garcia, her beloved sister Jacqueline Donegan and brother-in-law Frank. Her nephew Evan and his partner Erin McKernon, niece Fields Knight and her husband Jason, and great niece Kennedy all held special places in her heart, as did her best friend Jonathan D. Foote of Boston and her adopted family The Hagans of Ohio and countless friends who loved her.
Jerelyn was herself a shooting star.
In lieu of flowers contributions may be made to A Place Called Hope, 154 Pond Meadow Rd. Killingworth Ct. or The Twilight Wish Foundation. A celebration of life will follow later in the year.
A Memorial Mass will be held at St.Patrick- St. Anthony Church 285 Church St. Hartford, Ct. on Friday April 26th at 10:00 a.m. To extend condolences, please visit Farleysullivan.com.