On Thursday, September 1, 2022, Evelyn Ledyard, beloved sister, mother and grandmother, died at the age of 88 after a brief hospitalization due to complications from a fall. She was born in Rochester, NY, to Otto and Dora Stingle, and received a bachelor’s degree from Bowling Green University. In 1961 she married Gari Ledyard, and together they raised three daughters, Kathleen, Kristine and Brynna, in the Morningside Heights area of New York City. They were divorced in 1995. Evelyn worked throughout her daughters’ lives as a secretary, eventually coming to work in the Provost’s Office at Columbia University, where she brought dignity, a sense of humor, and legendary typing skills to her job supporting a succession of provosts. She loved her job and was very good at it, and her example in the many years that she worked there instilled in her children a lasting sense of responsibility and desire to do the best work possible. Evelyn retired in the early 2000s and split her time between New York, where she enjoyed reading the New York Times and walking her rescue dog Tess, and the beautiful countryside of Sharon, CT, where she traded the challenges of alternate-side-of-the-street parking for those of pump maintenance and keeping squirrels out of her attic. Eventually, when caring for a country house became too much for her, she moved to Somerville, MA, to be closer to two of her daughters.
Evelyn had a quick wit, a sharp tongue and a deeply independent spirit. She was tall and beautiful, a competent and loving mother and shrewd household manager. She laughed readily, always had an opinion, and expressed herself freely and forcefully. She inherited from her parents an indefatigable work ethic and belief in putting on your best face for others. Her daughters can attest that in their childhood it was not easy to lounge in an armchair reading when she was in the close vicinity, especially if the garden needed weeding or the dishes needed doing. She was raised in a time and household where waste was frowned upon and complaining was not encouraged, and her views on these topics imbued her with a certain severity. Nonetheless, her family never doubted her deep love and pride in them. In old age she enjoyed more quiet activities, such as taking care of her plants, greeting neighbors from the porch, having gin and tonics with her kids, and making sardonic comments while watching CNN News. Nonetheless, even at the age of 88, she could be seen neatening the yard, shoveling or raking, and wrestling the trash bins to the curb. It was virtually impossible to prevent her from carrying out these tasks or to get there ahead of her – they were a part of who she was.
Evelyn is survived by her sister Anita, brother-in-law Joe and nephew Christopher, her brother Robert and his wife Kathy, her daughters Brynna, Kristine and Kathleen and sons-in-law Paul and Jim, and her grandchildren, Gilly, Bonnie, Tate, Olivia, Kira and Cabell. Her powerful personality and presence will last far beyond her death, and her departure from this life is hard for her family to comprehend. Thankfully her suffering at the end was not long, but we would give much to have been able to mitigate it. She died as she lived, trying to take up the least amount of space and cause the least trouble to others. Little did she understand her central importance to us and the abiding love and concern we all felt for her. We miss her terribly.