Barbara Sacks Obituary

Barbara Bevier Sacks, 74, wife of Howard Raymond Sacks, of West Hartford, died Saturday, (August 2, 2003) at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston of complications from lung cancer. Daughter of the late Alden Edwin and Agnes Nisbet Bevier, she was born on October 13, 1928, in New York City, grew up in upstate New York, and graduated from Pomona College. She married Howard Raymond Sacks on November 1, 1952, and they brought up four children. She volunteered in Evanston, IL, and West Hartford, serving as PTA president, officer in both the West Hartford and Connecticut Leagues of Women Voters, and town committeewoman for the Democratic Party of West Hartford. An accomplished musician, she taught folk guitar and composed song lyrics for political campaigns and community events. At age 52, she entered the University of Connecticut School of Law, served on the Connecticut Law Review, and graduated near the top of her class. She worked for eight years for the Hartford law firm of Skelley, Clifford, Vinkels, Williams, and Rottner. She conducted extensive genealogical research on the Bevier family in Europe and the United States, and served as Secretary of both the Bevier-Elting Society and its parent organization, the Huguenot Historical Society of New Paltz, NY. She visited her children and grandchildren frequently; enjoyed wilderness camping and canoeing; and spent summers on vacation in Truro, Cape Cod, MA. She is survived by her husband, Howard; her sister and brother-in-law, Suzanne and Leighton Whitaker of Wallingford, PA; son and daughter-in-law, Stephen Alden Sacks and Tomoko Sawada Sacks of Tokyo, Japan; son and daughter-in-law, David Bevier Sacks and Julie Barnett Abrams and grandchildren, Isabel Miranda Sacks and Raphael Alden Sacks of Chevy Chase, MD; son and daughter-in-law, Peter Wallace Sacks and Deborah Jacobs and grandchildren, Molly Frances Sacks and Jacob Alden Sacks of Brookline, MA; daughter and son-in-law, Susan Miranda Sacks Green and Theodore Thomas Green, his children, Laurin Davis Green and Davis Mahartney Green, and grandson, Alden Jefferson Green of Garrett Park, MD; and five nieces and nephews. Services will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Weinstein Mortuary, 640 Farmington Ave., Hartford. Following the service, the family will receive friends at home.