Mary Steele Cooney

SALISBURY — Mary Cooney, 63, a beloved daughter, sister, aunt, and friend, died suddenly of a previously undiagnosed medical condition on Feb. 14, 2025.
Mary was born in Barre, Vermont on Dec. 22, 1961, the first child of Lucy Wright Cooney and George Scatchard. Mary spent her early childhood in Vermont, later moving with her mother and siblings to Brookline, Massachusetts, Little Compton, Rhode Island, and settling in Salisbury, Connecticut in 1973. Mary attended Salisbury Central School and graduated from Housatonic Valley Regional High School. At Housatonic, Mary discovered her love of theater, choral singing, and was a dedicated member of Future Farmers of America.
During her high school years, Mary, who never lost her joy in play, became the beloved babysitter for many local families. She delighted in playing with the kids, teaching them, loving them, and treasuring all the shared moments inherent in spending time with children.
Mary’s love of animals, and especially horses, blossomed during this time. A keen student of horseback riding, Mary acquired her own pony, Queen Anne, when she was 14 years old.Despite her seemingly quiet demeanor, with animals Mary was fearless, and she handled lively Queen Anne with bravery and spirit.
After graduating from Housatonic in 1980, Mary studied at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina, and then at Confederation College in Thunder Bay, Canada, graduating in 1988 with a degree in Arts Management. After college, Mary moved to Vancouver, Canada where she worked for a music management group, Michael Godin Management. Mary never enjoyed the spotlight but preferred working hard behind the scenes. Her childhood role as the eldest in a large family prepared her well for the varied demands of managing performing artists.
Mary relocated to Edmonton, Canada in 1998. She loved the relaxed, informal feel of the city, enjoyed shopping for organic food at the local farmers’ markets, and developed a strong interest in natural living and regenerative farming. A longtime vegetarian, she enjoyed cooking and sharing meals with friends. She was an exceptionally skilled knitter and was never without a knitting project. She hated injustice of all kinds and believed passionately in the possibility of a fairer, more peaceful world.
Mary had an adventurous streak, which saw her backpacking through Europe as a college student in the 1980s. Later, she fulfilled a lifelong dream of traveling to Australia and working on a sheep ranch. Yet no matter where she was in the world, Mary maintained an intense loyalty and closeness to her family. Despite living her adult life in Canada, far from her roots in New England, Mary traveled home for family gatherings in the US and the UK and could always be relied upon to turn up whenever anyone needed her help. She had a special connection with her nieces and nephews and genuinely loved playing with them and joining in their games. A visit from Auntie Mary invariably resulted in shrieks of laughter from her young relatives.
Mary’s sudden death came as a devastating shock to her family, who mourn the loss of her wonderful sense of humor, her incredible generosity and selflessness, and most of all, her loving heart.
Mary is survived by her parents, Lucy Wright Cooney, Michael Cooney and his wife, Margot Bridgett, her sisters, Ellen and her husband Peter Mullin, Lorien and her husband Adam Smyer, Beecher Grogan, Alison and her husband Sasha Hinkley, Kelly Cooney, her brothers Bill Cooney and his wife Andrea Reyer, Sam, Chris, and, Aaron Cooney and his wife Cammi Fulvi, and fourteen nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her father, George, and her cherished niece, Lucy Grogan. Mary also leaves behind her beloved Canadian friends, Tristan Spearing, his fiancée Sara Wollstein, and Carol and Joe Lewis.
Mary’s memorial service will be held on Saturday, July 26, at 3:00 p.m., at Trinity Episcopal Church, 484 Lime Rock Road, Lakeville, Connecticut. Light refreshments will be served after the ceremony.
The family hopes to reconnect and share stories with local friends in the Salisbury area. We hope you can join us.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Clemmons Family Farm at clemmonsfamilyfarm.org or Oxfam at oxfamamerica.org.
Author and cartoonist Peter Steiner signed books at Sharon Summer Book Signing last summer.
The 27th annual Sharon Summer Book Signing at the Hotchkiss Library of Sharon will be held Friday, Aug. 1, from 4:45 to 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Aug. 2, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; and Sunday, Aug. 3, at noon.
Friday’s festivities will honor libraries and the power of the written word. In attendance will be 29 locally and nationally recognized authors whose books will be for sale. With a wide array of genres including historical fiction, satire, thrillers, young adult and non-fiction, there will be something for every reader.
The event will include a selection of hors d’oeuvres and drinks, followed by eight festive author dinners where writers will read and discuss their work one-on-one with attendees.
Saturday will feature a new Page to Plate program that merges the literary and culinary worlds. Just as writing is a practice of patience and love, so too is the art of cooking. Cookbooks and food writing make cooking teachable to those excited to learn and celebrate the art of a perfect meal.
Through a combination of demonstrations and conversations, acclaimed cookbook authors and chefs will cover a variety of delicious topics. Highlights include a discussion with Chris Morocco, food director of “Bon Appetit” magazine and “Epicurious.” Sharon resident and chef Jessie Sheehan will demonstrate recipes from her cookbook “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes: 100 Easy-Peasy, Savory Recipes for 24/7 Deliciousness.”
With the combination of vetted recipes and thorough discussion from food experts, attendees are sure to leave knowing how to cultivate the ultimate act of service: the gift of a full stomach.
Sunday will be brunch at a private Sharon residence hosted by Graham Klemm and Cody O’Kelly to celebrate author Carolyn Klemm and her cookbook “Culinary Collection: Favorite Country Recipes.”
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit hotchkisslibraryofsharon.org
All proceeds support the programs at The Hotchkiss Library of Sharon.
Celebrating its 45th year, the Grumbling Gryphons will perform at HVRHS Friday, Aug. 1, at 7 p.m.
The Grumbling Gryphons Traveling Children’s Theater is preparing to celebrate its 45th year — not with fanfare, but with feathers, fabric, myth, chant, and a gala finale bursting with young performers and seasoned artists alike.
The Gryphons’ 2025 Summer Theater Arts Camp begins July 28 and culminates in a one-night-only performance gala at Housatonic Valley Regional High School on Friday, Aug. 1 at 7 p.m. Founder, playwright, and artistic director, Leslie Elias has been weaving together the worlds of myth, movement and theater for decades.
“We’re a touring company that is participatory,” Elias said with her trademark storytelling cadence. “Even when there’s no pre-performance workshop, it’s still participatory. Always.”
Founded in 1980 “in a little basement apartment on the lower east side with co-founder Vanessa Roe,” said Elias,Grumbling Gryphons (recipients of the 2003 Connecticut Governor’s Arts Award) has long occupied a unique niche: part performance troupe, part educational outreach, part community ritual. Whether dramatizing Greek myths, Native American legends, or original tales about bees and bogs, the company’s ethos centers on inclusion, transformation, and hands-on engagement.
This summer’s camp offers children ages six and up five fast-paced days of storytelling, acting, mask-making, and rehearsal. The first three days will take place at Elias’s own home studio — a tucked-away space filled with costumes, puppets, and instruments — before moving into full performance prep mode.
“In the ideal world, we would have more time,” she laughed. “It’s a lot of pressure to be performing for the public after five days. But we’re going to do our best.”
The gala performance, she explained, is a kind of theatrical mosaic — scenes and excerpts from Grumbling Gryphons’ vast repertoire, some showcasing seasoned adult performers and others giving campers center stage. The cast will include returning campers, newcomers, and guest artists drawn from the Gryphons’ decades-spanning circle of collaborators including mask maker and artist Ellen Moon.
“We’re still figuring out exactly what we’ll do,” said Elias, “but it’s kind of like a smorgasbord… a celebration. And it’s open — if anybody wants to get their kids involved, or even volunteer, we welcome you.”
Photo provided
Elias’s own theater background winds through early improvisational schools, Viennese dance traditions, and experimental spaces like Henry Street Settlement. As a child on Long Island, she studied with jazz pianist Ivan Fiedel and dancer Rosalind Fiedel, eccentric mentors who nurtured her taste for the surreal and spontaneous.
“Mr. Fiedel was a character,” she recalled. “He would smoke a cigar… and take the cigar in his ear and the smoke would come out the other end. I don’t know how he did it.”
Elias built Grumbling Gryphons with this sense of magic — not as a traditional company, but as a living, evolving story in itself. Whether working with preschoolers or middle-schoolers, audiences in botanical gardens or historic town halls, the Gryphons invite kids to become creators — to chant, to improvise, to embody archetypes from ancient lore or environmental parables.
And that’s what this summer’s camp and gala are all about. “It’s more than theater,” Elias said. “It’s myth, poetry, movement — it’s about building self-esteem, imagination. It’s about transformation.”
For more information, to register a child for the 2025 Summer Theater Camp, or to inquire about volunteering, visit grumblinggryphons.org
Attendees practive brushstrokes led by calligraphy teacher Debby Reelitz.
Calligrapher Debby Reelitz came to the David M. Hunt Library to give a group of adults and children an introduction to modern calligraphy Thursday, July 17.
Reelitz said she was introduced to calligraphy as a youngster and has been a professional calligrapher and teacher for more than 25 years.
She said there is no age barrier to learning the basics. “Once children can hold a pen or pencil, they can do it.”
Reelitz said her 5th-grade teacher introduced her to the art.
Then her mother pressed her into service doing the lettering for “4-H certificates and gift cards.”
Reelitz handed out a sampler and blank sheets of paper and then turned to the easel for demonstration purposes.
She noted that the letters (I,T,H,L,E and F) on the top row of the sampler were not alphabetically arranged.
Rather, they comprised a “latter family” of similar shapes.
Soon enough the entire group of six adults and three children were concentrating and turning out decent versions of the letters
Reelitz alternately demonstrated and encouraged the novices.
“Remember, this is not an instant gratification skill.”
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