Alice (Mitchell) Chalecki recently passed away peacefully at home on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015 at the age of 94.
She was born in 1921 to Alex and Emma Mitchell in Philadelphia PA. Her mother had been pulled from school after completing the eighth grade to learn household management in preparation for marriage. Upset at leaving school, she announced to her parents that she was not interested in marriage, she wanted to own a store (at the time, an unheard of vocation for a girl). Subsequently she apprenticed herself and eventually acquired a corner store and the apartment building that housed it, followed by a family summer cottage in Wildwood, NJ. It was the corner store that pulled the family through the Depression. Her mother's lesson to her daughters, "Women should strive to be financially independent, if they can." Grandma insisted that my mother take typing and shorthand courses in high school, as a backup.
Following high school, Mom entered what is now Moore College of Art & Design, on a full scholarship. Upon graduation, she became a sales rep for a paper company at the beginning of WWII. A client engineer arranged an interview for the secretary pool at the shipyard in Camden, he also smuggled some ship's drawings and told her to re-draw them them and show her new boss. She was promoted to the drafting section within a month, to learn a new trade. Shortly, her stunned mother said she was earning more per week than her father had ever earned working as a tool and die maker, and he was a foreman.
Mom attended USO dances where she met my despondent father. His flight training had been canceled and he was being shipped to Europe to fight under Patton, as a medic, working with what is now known as PTSD patients. Upon his return, they were married and moved to Connecticut. Mom, the city-girl, was warned by her fellow draftsmen "They still have Indians in Connecticut!"
Dad entered Yale on the GI Bill and they lived in a Quonset Hut installed on the Polo Fields. I came along in 1946, the product of an all expense paid government project to re-populate the workforce after losing so many men to war; now known as the Boomer generation. Following graduation, Dad found a job working at Bradley Field and Mom worked in New Haven at National Folding Box, designing
packaging. Dad insisted on following his dream of living on the shore and we found a small, affordable, half-finished Cape Cod in Guilford on S. Union St. Thus began their love affair with Guilford, it's community, it's town Green and boating. Most of my childhood was spent sailing and fishing along the coast, with Faulkner's Island a favorite destination.
Mom found a job immediately, working for a local architect and we stayed until just before I entered high school. During this period, Mom became heavily involved in local politics as a volunteer. As publicity chairman, she was a member of the Democratic Woman's Club that swept the Republicans from entrenched office in the landslide of 1957, with an 80% voting turnout. In addition, she worked on various Ella T. Grasso campaigns.
Dad became the prototypical post war GI. He bought his power tools from Sears, finished the upstairs, built a garage, a sleeping porch, built boats from plans offered in Mechanix Illustrated , and planted a massive garden with lots of flowers. Dad became the first CT Boating Safety Commissioner and we moved to Wethersfield, very reluctantly, to be near Hartford. We did not sell the South Union Street house, we became landlords and began to acquire real estate assets. Mom quickly found work at Advo
Systems and then, the Rare Reminder. I completed High School and left for college; Mom and Dad began acquiring property in affordable Mystic and Pawcatuck. They began saving their paychecks, living off of rental income. I took an unplanned detour from college during the Vietnam War and joined the Navy as a CT stationed in Japan. Mom and Dad began building in Pawcatuck in 1970. "Fired at fifty" found Dad at EB and Mom at Mystic Seaport, soon to be joined by Dad, for the next 25+ years! As their savings accumulated, Dad became a stock picker and Mom laddered bonds while managing and maintaining 9 rental units. Pawcatuck became our new piece of Paradise on the water.
My parents believed that to become successful in life, one should invest in education, work hard, hold a steady job, acquire assets and make them pay; otherwise, your assets will quickly become liabilities.
After Dad peacefully passed away at home in 2011, Mom became involved in active charitable giving. They had accumulated a sizable charitable trust which was transferred to the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut for the purpose of providing college scholarships to those students interested in a career in the medical professions. She wrote "We are all aware of the fact that advanced education is very expensive, but if that education ends up in service to others, it is well worth assisting." She was also an active supporter of Stand Up For Animals, Memorial and Library Association of Westerly, Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation, First Church of Christ (Wethersfield), Mystic Seaport, The Neighborhood Center of Pawcatuck, Westerly Hospital Foundation and the Salvation Army.
Alice was predeceased by her husband Bernard Chalecki and her sister, Emily Tudor, of Cranbury NJ, leaving her loving son, Bernard Jr.
All funeral services will be private for the family.
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