Nicole M. Preston

Nicole Monica Sumba Preston, 89, of Hamden peacefully passed away in her sleep on Saturday, December 28th, 2024, at Connecticut Hospice Inc., Branford with her daughter by her side. She was born in Bucharest, Romania on December 5th, 1935, to parents Atanase (Macedonian) and Hortense Sumba nee Iliescu (German) before the Communist regime installed itself and the persecution of middle class families such as Nicole's had begun. According to her oldest friend (today aged 90) Nely from Titu Maiorescu High School in Bucharest, Nicole was always joyous even in maths class which she hated, and, full of fun, loved to gather friends together for the secret parties held at a friend''s house every weekend where she danced to forbidden records from the West, many Italian. Those hits remained dear to her all her life – and she never forgot a single lyric. Her university days were tough. The 1950s were amongst the most draconian years under communism in Romania and she and her family lived through extreme cold, hunger and constant fear of arrest for just looking the wrong way. Despite such hardships, she got both her bachelor's degree for journalism and philosophy in 1953 and her master's for journalism and modern languages in 1955. Nicole was a gifted linguist fluent in German, the language she spoke at home, then Romanian when she started school, and very quickly French and English. She also understood Italian and Spanish, and could recite Little Red Riding Hood in Russian, though due to those terrible years of the 50s which saw her beloved father imprisoned, school friends as young as 14 arrested and neighbours disappearing in the night, she would rather have had her teeth pulled than speak it. She became a journalist and reporter for Radio Romania after graduation though not for long due to belonging to the "wrong political class". She was unceremoniously fired, but through a friend of her father's, was able to find employment at the Chamber of Commerce as a translator where she got her first taste of travelling abroad – something that very few people could do in Romania at the time. Selected to represent Romania in two World Fairs, she was sent to Stockholm and London where she worked from dawn to dusk, was followed at every step by Securitate, had next to no money, almost starved but loved every moment of it. She walked miles (mostly in the rain) in the little time she was not working, and marvelled at the colours, bustle and vibrance representative of a free world. In 1968, Nicole and her husband married and promptly escaped communist Romania during their honeymoon in an adventure that would merit a film via Italy, Austria and Germany until finally arriving in New York City as political refugees. Upon her arrival, she quickly found a job at Citibank before joining The Society for the Propagation of the Faith, a Pontifical Mission Society, based in New York City as an accountant and secretary-come-journalist. Her most joyful career years though were in sales. She loved people and in turn, they loved her back. She was the in-store consultant at Neiman Marcus, Saks and Bergdorf Goodman for one of the world's foremost luxury skincare and cosmetics firms, Sisley of Paris and was entrusted with managing, at different times, the company's two most prestigious accounts. Hundreds of Sisley clients in New York and White Plains relied upon Nicole's expertise and sophisticated European upbringing to guide them. Although it has been many years since she retired, there is no doubt that many retain fond memories of her sparkling personality. She ended her career as a manager at Tiffany's and was quite the diamond expert – a delight she kept for the rest of her life. She loved beautiful jewellery and really had fun guessing the value and origin of diamonds in jewellery stores. Nicole's love for travel, first ignited in her Chamber of Commerce days, was life-long oxygen, far more a need than a whim. She missed Europe and its beauty, and returned yearly with or without Sergiu who lost the travel bug with age. Nicole, on the other hand, seemed to gain it, afraid of running out of time too soon with so much still left to see. She particularly loved Germany and Austria, though adored the streets of Prague, the charm of Paris and the quirky beauty of Barcelona. She was an avid reader, and loved music, art and the intricacies of architecture. She had an extraordinary memory and endless curiosity for all things historic, and a superbly sharp and curious mind, frequently setting off down rabbit holes to answer a nagging doubt or to explore an event she thought she ought to know but didn't. Google was her friend, research was her passion. Nicole leaves behind her daughter Sarah, and six beloved friends: Douglas Klahr, Christine Voigt, Veronica Cantemir, Heidi Buchan, Marco Minocci, and Codruta Todeasa.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, January 4th, 2025, at 12:00 PM, at The Havens Family North Haven Funeral Home, 36 Washington Avenue, North Haven, CT 06473. Interment will be private and at the convenience of the family. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the CT Hospice Inc., 100 Double Beach Road, Branford, CT 06405 or to the National Pancreatic Cancer Foundation at www.npcf.us/ways-to-donate.