Emagene

Stromgren

Blanchard

Former Main Street Resident

Emagene Stromgren Blanchard, 93, died at her home in Florida, August 23. She was the daughter of Gustav Stromgren and Elvira Jansson Stromgren, and the wife of the late Benjamin Brett Blanchard, Newtown realtor and Judge of Probate.

She was born in Terre Haute, Ind., in 1916, moved to Worcester, Mass., in 1920, and graduated from North High School.

She studied theater for some years with Louise Sprague Eaton. Because of this, she was given the opportunity to study at Leland Powers School of Theater and Radio in New York City and to complete a three-year course in only two years. However, it was too costly to attend.

In the summer of 1936, at the age of 20, she worked with Professor Illingworth in the drama department at Clark University, which was an all-male school at the time, and she was chosen for the female leads in several productions, including Agatha Christie’s Black Coffee and Eugene O’Neill’s Beyond the Horizon. She then met her future husband, Ben, and was married in 1938.

In Rhode Island, where she and her husband raised their children, she was a den mother for the Cub Scouts, and had many mud pie tea parties with her children. After moving to Newtown in 1959, she studied watercolor with Betty Christensen, was the chair of the Beautification Committee, president of the Visiting Nurses’ Association (VNA), chair for ten years of the Salvation Army Newtown Service Unit, a member of the Garden Club, and of the Town Hall Board of Managers.

She moved to Weston, Fla., in 1987, where for ten years she was on the board of her condominium association. She traveled widely across the United States and in Europe.

In addition to her husband, her sisters Margaret Pederson and Lillian Smith, predeceased her.

She is survived by three children, a son, Brett Blanchard of Weston, Fla.; two daughters, Susan Adamek of Vernon, and Karen Blanchard of Westminster West, Vt.; a granddaughter, Gretchen Adamek and her husband, Armand Benjamin, of East Hartford; and several nieces and nephews. She also leaves her special canine companion, LilleVen.

Memorial services celebrating her life will be held October 24 at the Westminster West Congregational Church in Westminster West, Vt., as well as October 31, at the Newtown Congregational Church on West Street in Newtown. Both memorial celebrations will be from 2 to 4 pm.

Memorial donations may be made in her name to the Salvation Army, the VNA, the Garden Club of Newtown, or such organizations of choice.

The Newtown Bee        October 2, 2009