Lewella H. Francis

WINSTED — Lewella H. Francis, 101, died peacefully on March 15, 2010, at the Georgetown, Maine, home of her son and daughter-in-law, Sam and Ruth Francis, where she had resided for the past three years.

Lewella was born in Winsted on Dec. 8, 1908, the only child of Cora W. and Lewellyn Hart. She had resided on Overlook Road for 70 years, where she was a much beloved neighbor.

It was on Overlook Road that she and her husband, Phil Francis, with whom she enjoyed 57 wonderful years of marriage, raised their beloved and only son, Sam. Lewella loved her hometown of Winsted. She was actively involved in the community and especially her church, until the age of 98.

Lewella possessed a brave and independent spirit. She was a lifelong student of the world. She loved Wesleyan hymns and dandelion wine, German poetry and the Boston Red Sox. Outsiders and underdogs were always close to her heart.

She was a confirmed, lifelong fan of baseball. She witnessed Babe Ruth hit a home run for the Yankees in the 1930s and Pedro Martinez strike out 15 for the Red Sox in ’98. She and Phil were often first in the bleachers for many of their grandchildren’s baseball games in Maine.

Lewella was the consummate, traditional yankee hostess at her home for Thanksgiving and at her cottage on Highland Lake for Fourth of July cookouts. It was no secret that her watermelon pickles served at Thanksgiving were from the rind of the previous summer’s Fourth of July watermelon.

Lewella graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1930 at the height of the Great Depression with a degree in English and a desire to write. She studied with Robert Frost, and received a student poetry award from Edna St. Vincent Millay. However, in the Depression era, there was little demand for writers, but the field of social work was crying out for help. Lewella embraced the New Deal’s goals and began a long career in social work. She received her MSW at the University of Connecticut in 1967 at the age of 59.

Her work included family treatment of addiction, family casework, adoption services and residential treatment for troubled children, as well as supervisory and administrative work on the local, state and federal levels. A member of the Red Cross National Disaster Staff, she was in the unit assigned to the second Johnstown, Pa., flood in 1936.

Always an activist, she spoke at the first legislative hearing on licensing of social workers in Connecticut, persuaded her state representative to introduce a (successful) bill to assure needy applicants of prompt decisions, served for five years as an observer and reporter of state services for the mentally ill, and was awarded the Connecticut Mental Health Association Bell in 1978.

In retirement, along with gardening, organist duties, church work and serving as the president of the Winchester Historical Society, she returned to her first love, writing, and published her first book of poetry, “Golden Pebbles,� in 1996. She was a conservationist and a lover of nature. One of her favorite places was Highland Lake. It was the site of her last swim at the age of 97, in the company of two of her grandsons, and it was the inspiration for one of her best-loved poems, titled “Last Swim.�

 Last Swim

Not the last time!

Not yet. How can I leave

 This golden sunlight, frosting waters blue —

These drifting, cream-whipped clouds against the sky

and maple rubies floating here and there?

Even the misty mornings of July

 Were not as calm, untroubled, glory-touched

 As this late-autumn pool —

 Bathed in the silent joy of loneliness.

 How many times, again, will I become

A rippled marking on your shining face —

or, looking past your far-off, distant shore

to greening hills, find

mother’s milk again?

 

She was survived by her only son, Philip S. Francis Jr. (Sam) and her daughter-in-law, Ruth; four grandsons, Ernest O’Connor and his wife, Rachel, of Brunswick, Maine, Philip S. Francis III of Cambridge, Mass., Loren H. Francis of Nashville, Tenn., and Christopher J. Francis and his wife, Katie, of Lexington, Mass.; four great-grandchildren, Ernest, Jenny, John and her namesake, Lewella; and her fondest cousin, Marion Rode and her husband, Ron, of Clinton and their family.

She was predeceased by her husband, Philip S. Francis.

Calling hours will be on Friday, March 19, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Maloney Funeral Home, Winsted. Funeral services will be held Saturday, March 20, at 11 a.m. at Winsted United Methodist Church.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent in memory of Lewella to the Winsted United Methodist Church, 630 Main St., Winsted, CT 06098-1515.

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