Sarah M. Polhemus

SALISBURY — Sarah M. Polhemus, died peacefully on Dec. 23, 2025, at Noble Horizons in Salisbury, Connecticut where she had been a resident for the past four years. Born in Torrington, she was the daughter of A.H. “Hank” Mitchell and Orpha Brown Robinson. She lived in Stamford until 1941, at which time her family relocated to Salisbury, where she lived most of the balance of her life.

“Squeak” (A childhood nickname that stayed with her throughout her life) spent her youth in Salisbury until she left for boarding school at The Northfield School For Girls (Now Northfield Mount Herman School). After graduation, she followed in her mother’s footsteps to Connecticut College. Upon graduation, she headed to New York City where she worked and lived for a number of years, before moving to Wilton, where she started her family. But Salisbury was always home. In 1974, she returned to Salisbury with her family and began working for her family real estate firm, Robinson Real Estate. She worked alongside her mother and sister Louise (“Petie”), eventually partnering with her sister to form Robinson-Polhemus Real Estate. Here she remained for the next three decades, until she retired in 2007.

After retirement, she embarked on her “second career” with various board roles. She served on the board of The Corner Food Pantry and Taconic Learning Center, served as clerk of the Congregational Church for several years and even served as the Salisbury Town Treasurer from 2013-2015.

An outdoors and sports person, she loved her time on the tennis and platform tennis courts, participating in many local tournaments over the years. But her first love was golf – Playing and competing with her course partner and sister Petie and her large circle of golfing friends. In fact, in 1980, she beat her sister Petie just one time in the Sharon Country Club Women’s Golf Championship (Petie won the championship several times and flanked her before and after, but 1980 was “Squeak’s year”!). She continued at Sharon for many years, before calling the Hotchkiss course her home course in later years.

Always wearing a smile and always seeing the positive in everything, she was able to laugh at even the most unsettling situations and never let the negative stuff get her down. A loving, and loved, member of the Salisbury community, she was a family person, first and foremost and her “family” extended to countless people she touched in the community. She was a wealth of knowledge and true storehouse of time as it related to Salisbury and loved sharing funny stories about the old days in our quiet little corner. Some stories were actually hard to believe – by today’s standards – like sledding as a child all the way from the Erickson Farm up on Bunker Hill to Main Street Salisbury, right on the road! but, they were true nonetheless. She loved her home of Salisbury and the many good friends and family with whom she shared her native turf over the decades.

She was predeceased by her brother, Donald L. Mitchell and sisters, Ann R. Noble and Ann M. Van Deusen. She is survived by her sister, Louise W. Robinson of Salisbury, her daughter Sarah Bartle (Tom) and granddaughters, Sandy and Nicki Bartle, all of Wilmington, North Carolina. She is also survived by her son, Freddy Polhemus, of Lakeville, and granddaughters, Emily Polhemus (Conor) of Columbia Falls, Montana, and Katherine Polhemus (Jacob) of Rutland, Vermont.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a memorial contribution to The Noble Horizons General Fund.