Sarah Rentschler

RENTSCHLER--Sarah Yorke(Rah), of Hudson, NY died suddenly of heart failure on September 6, 2009 in Hudson. She was 59. Born in 1950 in Minneapolis, MN, she grew up in Lake Forest, IL. She attended the Ethel Walker School and Sarah Lawrence College, before setting down roots in New York City. Sarah managed the Vorpal Gallery in Soho, NY, and then in San Francisco. Returning to Manhattan, she opened the Sarah Y. Rentschler Gallery in her legendary penthouse space in Chelsea, where she brought many emerging artists into focus, with later locations in Soho, Bridgehampton, Water Mill, and in Hudson. She was a features writer at The San Francisco Progress, a weekly edited and published by her father Bill, of whom she was a chip off the old block. Sarah later founded The Complicated Goat catering and kids' cooking classes with her longtime love Dan. And if platters could talk! Sarah was an avid reader and writer, leaving behind many works in progress. She was a force of nature, with an incredible eye, an innate sense of style, and an enormous and loyal heart. Sarah was a rebel, and known to say "What trouble can we get into?!?" In the words of her adoring mother Sylvia, she was "uni-Q"! Over her lifetime Sarah mothered a menagerie of animals; among many others there were the goats Hote and Ginnie and Maaa; cats Wilhelmina Scooter Livingston, Olivia, Bandita, Owly, and recent adoptee Daytona from Hamilton, Ohio; dogs Rufus, and Cora Dijon; an indoor-outdoor chicken named Red. Sarah was adored and will be missed by so many. She is survived by Daniel J. Bleckinger; his children Amber Wedin and Mark Wedin; mother Sylvia Angevin Thompson; father William Henry Rentschler, siblings Peter Ferris Rentschler; Mary Angevin Rentschler; Phoebe Rentschler Cole, Alexandra Angevin Thompson-Cole; Hope Rentschler Garbo; stepsiblings: Lydia Thompson Whitehead; and Wallace Underwood Thompson. Sarah was Auntie Mame to nine nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her cherished stepfather George Wallace Thompson. Memorial service on Martha's Vineyard on Saturday, September 12, 11am, Abel's Hill Cemetery, Chilmark, followed by a celebration at 15 Angevin's Lane, Edgartown. Donations in lieu of flowers: "Animalkind" or "Dan Bleckinger's Free Spirits Children's Tennis" of Hudson, NY (111 Ten Broeck Lane, Hudson, NY 12534).