VOWS

MARGOT ANNA MCELWREATH & HENRY THOMAS GARLAND

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by alison nichols gray

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1 Mr. and Mrs. Garland 2 Harry with his groomsmen 3 William Ridgway, Margot, Carol Ridgway 4 Margot with her bridesmaids 5 Richard and Lorraine Garland with Harry 6 Leslie McElwreath, Harry, Margot and Ed McElwreath 7 Louise Gaumond, Ann Anthony, Anne Redd 8 Virginia Marzonie, Garrett Allen, Nancy and Lindsey Axilrod 9 The newlyweds Margot and Harry met at the Fairfield bar 55 Degrees during a trivia night, but neither could have known the question that would be asked down the road. Margot was having a night out with her nursing school friends, and Harry happen to be in town from the city visiting his parents who live in Westport. It didn’t take Harry long to realize her looks were complemented by her wit and smarts, as she dominated trivia night like a contestant on Jeopardy! Entranced, Harry asked her out, and they had their first date the next week at The Standard in Manhattan.

After dating for two and a half years, Harry proposed on Margot’s birthday. He lined up twenty-seven gifts going from her bedroom to the bottom of the stairs. Each gift represented something significant to their relationship. The final gift was the engagement ring that was tied to the neck of their Australian shepard, Sneakers.

The Rev. Dr. Cheryl McFaddden officiated at the ceremony at Christ Church in Greenwich, and a reception followed at Greenwich Country Club.

The bride, daughter of Edward and Leslie McElwreath of Greenwich, graduated from Cushing Academy, Rollins College and Fairfield University. Margot is a registered nurse at NYU Langone in New York.

The groom, son of Richard and Lorraine Garland of Westport, graduated from Greens Farms Academy, Northeastern University and Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University. Harry is an investment banker for Guggenheim Partners in New York.

The newlyweds honeymooned in Croatia. They call Manhattan home. G

1 Nina Lindia

Grassroots Leader

2 Steven & Sandy Soule

Impactful Duo

5 Robert Doran

Community Advocate

9 Marianne Pollak

6 Suzanne Brown Koroshetz

Best Friend to Children

3 Saskia Zimmerman

Outstanding Teen Volunteer

4 Stephanie Cowie

Inspiring Leader

7 Andrew Wilk

Supporter of the Arts

8 Mike Miller

Community Good Neighbor

10 Harry Day

It’s our favorite time of year at Moffly Media— the time when a warm glow emanates from the pages of our Light a Fire issue. It comes from the Fairfield County residents who spend all year working tirelessly to help their neighbors, improve our towns and make the world a better place. They rarely have a chance to sit still and bask in the glow they have created. We, with the help of your passionate nomination letters, can give them this one moment to shine before they return to protecting children’s mental health, delivering food to the hungry, offering homework clubs and music lessons to immigrant children, making our towns easier to navigate for those with disabilities, buoying the spirits of breast cancer survivors, resettling refugees, preventing abuse, preserving the glorious land around us, championing the arts, building synagogues, bringing together our communities and saving lives. Take a moment and give them your full attention. They just may spark something in you that will land you in our Light a Fire issue one day.

Lindia Nina

Grassroots Leader

ORGANIZATIONS

Pitch Your Peers, Breast Cancer Alliance, B-Search.org

INSPIRATION

“I started volunteering at twenty-two, when I moved to New York,” says Old Greenwich resident Nina Lindia. “For the first time in my life something broke my heart enough that I wanted to see what I could do about it.” All the vision-impaired residents astounded her. “I couldn’t imagine navigating the city without the power of sight,” she says. Nina began volunteering with a youth program, and then something magical happened. “Volunteering literally solved my own problem. I witnessed how powerful it can be,” recounts Nina, who joined every committee she could when she moved to Greenwich. “Each was another opportunity to learn something,” she says. “The first thing I ask people I meet is: ‘What breaks your heart about the world?’ I always have a recommendation for a great nonprofit that will unbreak their hearts. I’m not necessarily someone people come to for advice, but in this category I am. It’s a wonderful feeling.”

COURAGE INTO ACTION

Nina is cofounder of the organization Pitch Your Peers, which grew out of a simple observation. “Donation requests usually start with: ‘sorry to ask’ and ‘no amount is too small,’” she says. “That’s a terrible pitch! I thought what if we create a forum in which we can pool resources, without a lot of red tape, one meeting a year, with the notion of giving where you live. Members each give $1,000 annually and in addition pitch their networks: ‘I’m going to ask you for $2,000 and give you really good reasons why.’” If she gets a no, Nina asks what the potential donor is passionate about, so she knows for the future. “I wanted to diversify the portfolio of how we ask for donations,” she explains. Pitch Your Peers raised $10,000 in one day for Ukraine. New chapters are sprouting up across America.

As a breast cancer survivor, Nina is also a champion of the Breast Cancer Alliance. She cochaired its 2019 luncheon, which shattered all records with a sold-out event of 1,100 people and $1.6 million raised.

HOPES AND DREAMS

“One way we can all give back is an intangible way. If you care about an organization and the community it supports, set a great example. I genuinely care about the population of global breast cancer survivors, and I try to set a great example for people who are newly diagnosed,” says Nina, who had a double mastectomy and numerous rounds of chemo and radiation. “I want to help them to not be terrified, to not give up on themselves. I’ve been through it all, and I’m full of joy.” She adds, “Friends are so important to me. I want to keep helping them unbreak their hearts.” »

WORDS OF PRAISE

“Nina is a force to be reckoned with. When she sees a need, she looks to fill it. As a lifetime resident of Greenwich, Pitch Your Peers supporter and close friend of Nina’s, it’s so inspiring to see how she harnessed the power of women to make a very real and hands-on impact. Starting a movement is never easy, but Nina has done it with intention, humor and grace. With the help of some good friends who believe in the vision of collaborative giving, informed philanthropy and volunteerism, Pitch Your Peers quickly went from an idea to reality. Since its inception, PYP has expanded from Greenwich to Chicago and Seattle—Nina is heavily involved with both to ensure their success. She also passionately supports many other nonprofits. Her gratitude for life shines through in everything she does!”

—LINDSAY POTTER, FRIEND AND PITCH YOUR PEERS SUPPORTER

WORDS OF PRAISE “For the past fifteen years Sandy has served on the JFS of Greenwich board of directors, including ten years on the executive committee as secretary. In both 2021 and 2022, Sandy and Steve graciously hosted our annual fundraisers at their Riverside home, with close to 200 people in attendance. Their dedication to our growing social services agency is unmatched.” —RACHEL KORNFELD, CEO, JEWISH FAMILY SERVICES OF GREENWICH INSPIRATION “Steven and I grew up in families with a tradition of helping others,” says Sandy Soule. “My parents were refugees of the Holocaust and were founding members of Larchmont Temple. We’d been in Greenwich over forty-five years when the opportunity came up for me to help build a new synagogue. We dedicated the arch in the synagogue in memory of my parents, so I would say we were ORGANIZATIONS First Reform Synagogue, Jewish Family Services, Mill River CollaborativeSteven & Sandy Soule

COURAGE INTO ACTION

Sandy serves on the board of Greenwich Reform Synagogue and is copresident. “We built a new synagogue on Orchard Street in Cos Cob. It’s amazing,” says Sandy, who also serves on the board of JFS of Greenwich. “Jewish Family Services has really stepped it up since the Afghan resettlement program started,” she says, “and now they’re working with Ukrainian refugees as well. Everyone is entitled to a safe place to live.” During the pandemic, when indoor fundraisers weren’t feasible, the Soules graciously offered to host an outdoor event for JFS. “Since we live in paradise, we are very happy to share,” says Sandy. The first event was a success and attendance tripled at the next. First Presbyterian Church was one of JFS’s community partners in its resettlement efforts. “When Christians and Jews get together to help Muslims, that’s a very special moment,” says Sandy. Steven became involved with the Mill River Collaborative through his company SB&W (a custom components manufacturer) and First County Bank’s philanthropic foundation. “They have made a commitment to the community that is wonderful to be a part of,” comments Steven. “Mill River is just becoming what it has potential to be.” Sandy adds, “It used to be full of rusting shopping carts and now it’s magnificent.” At the Soule’s annual Fourth of July Impactful Duo party, they request food donations for Neighbor to Neighbor, rather than hostess gifts. For bar mitzvahs, they give one check to the child and one for a charity of the child’s choice. “The kids feel empowered and engaged,” says Steven. continuing a family tradition.” Sandy is also involved in Jewish Family Services. HOPES AND DREAMS “There is a saying: To those who much Steven quips: “To be alive and to be is given, much is expected,” she says. retired!” Sandy adds, “I would hope for “Steven is still very busy running his a fact-based reality, recognizing women business, but when I retired, it was as human beings with minds of their our time to start giving back. It’s really own. Needless to say, I’m a very strong important to us.” Steven concurs: supporter of Planned Parenthood. I “Watching what Sandy’s family went signed my first pro-choice petition through and what they did, you have when I was pregnant with our daughter, no choice but to do this.” who is now forty-six.”

INSPIRATION

“I was very lucky to go to a high school with so many resources,” says Darien resident Saskia Zimmerman, a firstgeneration American. “I know that when my parents immigrated [from El Salvador] to the United States, they worked very hard to provide me with the best possible education within their reach. I had the opportunity to take challenging classes [at Darien High School], to learn to play the violin, to fence, to participate in many extracurricular clubs and activities. Not everyone has that good fortune. That’s why I worked with immigrant children at Building One Community (B1C), because they should also have those same opportunities.” The kids served by B1C, an organization focused on the successful integration of immigrants and their families, attend schools that often don’t have the resources Saskia benefitted from, and knowing that inspired her to make a difference.

COURAGE INTO ACTION

During high school, Saskia volunteered by offering academic tutoring and violin lessons, and she also lead a Homework Club. Last summer, she developed a summer STEAM Club for elementaryschool-age children at B1C. “I created lesson plans, led hands-on activities, and fundraised for all the materials,” she explains. “I also enlisted one of my older students to help me run the club, so she could give back to the community as well. The children weren’t the only ones who learned. I discovered what it feels like to create and pitch a program, along with how hard it is to be on the other side of the classroom breaking down complicated STEAM topics in a way that even Junior, the youngest student fresh out of kindergarten, could understand. I had never seen a class more eager to learn. I was constantly impressed by their small hands furiously scribbling notes and their engagement. The success of the camp was very rewarding and reinforced my belief that equal access to education is something every kid deserves.”

HOPES AND DREAMS

“I hope that the kids I help grow up to help other kids, and I hope B1C is able to continue to provide the means through which the bond is formed,” says Saskia. “I hope volunteers at B1C continue to help community members learn the skills that will give them the best chance at success in this country, while volunteers deepen their understanding and appreciation of other cultures.” »

Saskia Zimmerman

Outstanding Teen Volunteer

ORGANIZATION B1C

WORDS OF PRAISE

“Saskia’s commitment to B1C, and what she has accomplished in her 215 hours of volunteering since 2019, have exceeded our expectations for a youth volunteer. Saskia has volunteered to teach immigrant adults English and tutor youth immigrant students in math. She is also one of our most diligent Homework Club Leaders. Saskia volunteered to run the STEAM summer camp at B1C. She raised the money for the camp through a GoFundMe campaign she created and also used her own birthday money to make supplies available to the kids in her class. Undoubtedly, Saskia’s volunteer work has not only impacted our immigrant children’s lives but also B1C’ s success. ” —LORELY PECHE, FAMILY AND SCHOOL SERVICES DIRECTOR, B1C

Stephanie Cowie

Inspiring Leader

ORGANIZATIONS

Greenwich Public School PTAs, GPS Building Committees, Junior League of Greenwich, United Way of Greenwich, American Red Cross (Metro NY North), League of Women Voters, First Selectman's Advisory Committee for People with Disabilities

INSPIRATION

“My parents instilled the importance of giving back,” says Steph Cowie. “Whether they were coaching teams, serving as volunteers for our town or various organizations, we grew up knowing volunteerism should be a part of our day-to-day.”

In January of 2018, Steph suffered a stroke to her spine, which caused paralysis from the waist down. “Faced with undoubtedly one of the most difficult personal challenges, my life and our family’s life changed dramatically,” says Steph. “Unable to continue my thirty-year professional career, I found that volunteer work became the outlet I needed and carried me through some of the difficult times. Through my volunteer commitments, I was able to adapt and continue to make a difference. Volunteering will always be a part of my life. I continue to volunteer, because I enjoy being with people and making even the slightest difference in a project or a person’s life.”

COURAGE INTO ACTION

“I have been so fortunate to work with so many wonderful organizations over the last twenty-one years,” says Steph, who was the recipient of the Greenwich PTA’s Lifetime Essence Award and served on the boards of the United Way and American Red Cross.

“My lens seems very different now than it was previous to my stroke. Like so many, I was unaware of the inadequate services, lack of accessibility and inclusivity in our community for those with disabilities,” she explains. “Several years ago, I became the vice chair of the First Selectman’s Advisory Committee for People with Disabilities. I have learned so much and have put all that to good use.”

Steph now directs most of her volunteer time to infrastructure in Greenwich, advocating for the town to be Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant in all schools and public spaces. “We just celebrated the ADA’s thirty-second anniversary at the new— and now ADA-compliant—Greenwich High School Cardinal Stadium,” she says. “I couldn’t be more proud to have been a part of this improvement for all to use.”

HOPES AND DREAMS

“I hope that Greenwich continues to work together—all town departments and the public—to better the lives of those with disabilities by making public spaces and buildings inclusive and accessible. We are all only temporarily able.”

WORDS OF PRAISE

“Steph’s passion for philanthropy is infectious, and that has never been more apparent than it is today as she struggles with her own physical challenges and still finds ways to help others and offer them support and encouragement. Steph has a deep passion for life, which permeates all that she does, making her a great messenger of endless possibilities. While she has held many leadership positions, Steph pours as much energy into working behind the scenes as she does leading the way.”

—SUE BODSON, FRIEND (2010 Light a Fire Honoree, Best Friend to Children)

Robert Doran

Community Advocate

ORGANIZATIONS

Domestic Violence Crisis Center, Westport Country Playhouse, New Canaan Chamber Music, New Canaan Abuse Prevention Partnership

INSPIRATION

“As a community relentlessly working together with our nonprofits, we can break cycles of abuse, addiction, hunger and poverty,” says New Canaan resident Bob Doran.

“We can provide education, skills and tools for people to be in control of their own lives. The work of our local nonprofit organizations in the trenches, at their best, transforms lives. The people who are reached by those services and are better for it transform our communities. That is inspiring.”

COURAGE INTO ACTION

Doran is active in numerous nonprofit organizations in Fairfield County— Domestic Violence Crisis Center (advisory board), Westport Country Playhouse (trustee) and New Canaan Chamber Music (founding board member)—and also is the volunteer head of New Canaan’s Channel 79 and a founding member of New Canaan Abuse Prevention Partnership.

As host of the Talking About It podcast, Doran is dedicated to preventing abuse, promoting healthy relationships and reducing the stigma around behavioral health issues.

“We need to talk openly about the issues our neighbors face,” says Doran. “Our communities are neither their healthiest nor their strongest if one of us is in need. I made a conscious decision many years ago to not be a bystander. Instead, I try to move the needle as an advocate for change— actively and respectfully speaking out loud about issues affecting our communities. By being a visible advocate—writing op-eds, producing podcasts, speaking publicly and working with nonprofit leadership—I look to raise awareness of important issues, remove the stigma of being in need and give people a voice and a language to ‘talk about it.’”

Doran adds, “I work with many nonprofits on strategic planning and engagement to define ‘Purpose’ and share their compelling stories.”

HOPES AND DREAMS

“I hope organizations find their Purpose—with a capital P,” says Doran.

“I would like to see organizations do the unconventional and set aside their ‘Mission and Vision Statements.’ I find that most board members, staff, volunteers and clients don’t know them anyway. ‘Mission and Vision’ narrow our focus in ways that constrict peripheral vision; like putting blinders on a horse, you can only see what’s in front of you. Solutions are invariably found around corners. When we look through a Purpose-driven lens, our stories are more compelling, everyone is more engaged, difficult and divisive choices become constructive dialogue, the path to success is clearer, and we make a greater impact in the world.” »

WORDS OF PRAISE

“Bob Doran embodies the true essence of why one dedicates their time to volunteering. While many raise a hand from time to time in support of a cause that is near and dear to them, Bob raises both and jumps in, feet first. Bob has done so much to lift countless lives through his leadership and to provide a path forward for those who might not otherwise find one.”

—TUCKER MURPHY, ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER,

TOWN OF NEW CANAAN

Suzanne Brown Koroshetz

Best Friend to Children

ORGANIZATION Kids in Crisis

WORDS OF PRAISE

“As an innovative educator and principal of Stamford High School and Brien McMahon High School, Suzanne demonstrated exceptional compassion, connection and leadership on behalf of students and families. She has been an impactful speaker advocating for Teen Talk programs throughout Fairfield County. Countless students have benefited from mental health services due to Suzanne’s commitment and prioritization of this service. It’s impossible to quantify how many children’s lives were saved due to her tireless effort to assure funding and program availability year to year. Since retiring, she continues to share her expertise and passion as a Kids in Crisis board member. As part of the Substance Misuse Prevention Task Force, Suzanne is helping to build a campaign to educate families and youth on the dangers of marijuana use. Her work has a direct impact on the health of today’s youth.”

—DEBRA KATZ, KIDS IN CRISIS, DIRECTOR OF OUTREACH AND COMMUNITY

INITIATIVES

INSPIRATION

“When I was the principal of Brien McMahon High School in Norwalk, my students were the recipients of a Kids in Crisis (KIC) donor-funded Teen Talk counselor,” recounts Suzanne Brown Koroshetz. “This masters’ level, compassionate counselor helped many students navigate difficult personal and school-related issues.” The Teen Talk counselor augmented the school staff by providing confidential individual, group and family counseling.

“She identified at-risk students and families flying under the radar and reached out to students experiencing depression, anxiety, substance-use struggles, and trauma- and conflictrelated stresses,” says Suzanne. “She was an angel who arrived to help my kids. I believe she saved lives.” Suzanne now has the time to support the wonderful organization that did so much for the students in her care. “While Teen Talk is a vital component of KIC, the organization does even more to support children and families,” she adds.

COURAGE INTO ACTION

Suzanne now serves on KIC’s board of directors. “What a gift to join a group of dedicated board members and remarkable staff. And to be able to ‘officially’ represent an organization that has meant so much to me for a long time,” she says. Suzanne is cochair of the program committee and works with staff, fellow board members and volunteers. “Our role is to support KIC programs and stay true to the vision and mission of KIC,” she explains. “The programs we directly support include Safe Haven, Light House, Helping Kids Thrive (KIC’s webinar), Outreach and Community Partners.”

HOPES AND DREAMS

“I wish for KIC’s incredible staff and amazing volunteers to continue to have the energy and compassion and all the funding needed to reach the KIC vision: a community where all children are happy and safe,” says Suzanne. “We are working to build healthy communities where children and families can thrive— with prevention, counseling and crisis services available twenty-four hours, every day.” Suzanne continues: “This work is so important. It’s hard to be a kid today, and many families are struggling. It is a privilege to support KIC values as the staff works to welcome all people with respect and kindness, by responding quickly and thoughtfully, while bringing strength and compassion for the benefit of children.”

Andrew Wilk

Supporter of the Arts

ORGANIZATIONS

Westport Library, Westport Country Playhouse

INSPIRATION

Westport resident Andrew Wilk retired as executive producer of Live From Lincoln Center in 2019, but there is no valve to turn off the creative flow generated by this producer/director/ conductor/multi-Emmy-winning brain. “In a show biz career, you do it because you love it, and you want to keep doing it,” says Wilk. “It was my chance to do something with this artsy town that I’m really attached to. Westport has been a wonderful place for our sons to grow up. And part of it is selfish—I want to stay sharp, keep directing, keep conducting, and I don’t want to wake up and stare at the ceiling! Retiring with a unique skill set motivates me to keep at it regardless of any compensation.”

COURAGE INTO ACTION

In just a few (pandemic-riddled) years, Wilk has brought a slew of stars and Lincoln Center-quality concerts to Westport. He shared his talent conducting the Staples Pops Concert at the Levitt Pavilion, which led Bill Harmer to inquire if he’d do something for the library. “Something” in Wilkspeak translated to a Malloy Lecture with Broadway greats James Lapine, Stephanie Block and Bill Finn about their show Falsettos (which Wilk filmed for PBS); a riveting speaker series, Andrew Wilk Presents; another Malloy Lecture on Leonard Bernstein; and orchestrating the Booked for the Evening event with Itzhak Perlman. Harmer wisely asked Wilk to join the board. Andrew is now in his second term.

“Part of the reason I moved here was the Playhouse,” says Wilk, who suggested the venue for the Falsettos talk and subsequently brought the Playhouse into homes across America via PBS with his Stars in Concert Series in 2021, featuring Shoshana Bean, Gavin Creel and Brandon Victor Dixon. Wilk is currently brainstorming on a future large-scale production to galvanize support for the Playhouse and bring local performers and Broadway stars together on its stage.

HOPES AND DREAMS

“I would hope that the arts will continue to flourish here, and we revive the Playhouse with community support,” says Wilk. “Our library is beyond ground-breaking, and the community provided tremendous support and generosity for the renovation of the library and construction of its state-of-the-art recording studio, Verso Studios. I hope the Playhouse can benefit from the town’s generosity and enthusiasm like the Library has.” »

WORDS OF PRAISE

“Andrew has been on the Board of Trustees since 2017. During his tenure he has graciously shared his directorial and production talents, while freely opening up his Rolodex to bring in various personalities allowing for world-class programming at the Library, from Bob Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic, to Jay Schadler and Mick Davie, correspondents and journalists, to Itzhak Perlman, world-famous violinist and so many others. He is generous to a fault with his time and talent, and we at the Library are grateful and indebted to him for his immeasurable contributions.”

—BILL HARMER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WESTPORT LIBRARY

Mike Miller

Community Good Neighbor

ORGANIZATIONS

Transportation Association of Greenwich, Neighbor to Neighbor, Greenwich Department of Human Services, Art Society of Old Greenwich

WORDS OF PRAISE

“Mike has been on the board of directors at TAG for fourteen years, starting as a financial advisor, and is currently the board president and CFO of TAG—all volunteer positions. Mike is more than a board member. He is a true friend of TAG, doing everything he can to help it grow and become more successful in its mission. He works as many hours as a full-time employee! Mike has been there every step of the way as a mentor, advisor, teacher and friend. His commitment to this organization is one of belief—believing that TAG is a truly valuable asset to the Greenwich community. He does anything and everything to make it happen on a daily basis.”

—DEB VETROMILE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TAG

INSPIRATION

“Shortly after my family relocated to Riverside nearly three decades ago, we participated in what can accurately be described as a type of local barn raising,” explains Mike Miller. “Over six weeks during school break, several dozen neighbors—some with construction trade experience, many without—built from the ground up an entirely new playground for Riverside Elementary School. I enjoyed this experience immensely and knew that when other opportunities to serve our community presented themselves, I would again gladly volunteer and participate.”

COURAGE INTO ACTION

Miller began volunteering with neighborhood nonprofits after supporting public school programs for many years. He became very involved with Transportation Association of Greenwich (TAG), which offers specialized para-transit services for the Town of Greenwich, annually providing over 30,000 rides for seniors, the disabled, school-age youth and neighbors with limited resources. “My career skills—team building, collaboration, organizational strategy, finance and management advisory— that were honed through supporting a variety of organizations experiencing periods of urgent transition, dovetailed well with TAG,” says Miller, who helped the organization recover from the Great Recession. He has served TAG as board member, treasurer and president, for over fourteen years.

During the pandemic, TAG pivoted to focus on its pre-pandemic food delivery program, Feed Greenwich, in conjunction with Neighbor to Neighbor and the Department of Human Services. “Throughout the pandemic to date, TAG has surpassed 72,000 home deliveries, delivering a cumulative total of over 800,000 pounds of food,” says Miller. “In June, following a competitive bid process, TAG was awarded a $3 million contract, which doubled its annual ridership to over 60,000 and expanded its operating footprint to seven additional communities. It has been a tremendously rewarding experience, working alongside the dedicated people here at TAG who help so many.”

HOPES AND DREAMS

“That our community-at-large maintains its commitment to the many organizations that make such a major difference day after day for our neighbors.”

Marianne Pollak

Dedicated Committee Member

ORGANIZATIONS

Fairfield County Community Foundation, Soundwaters, CT Committee of Regional Plan Association, Bartlett Arboretum, Stamford Garden Club, League of Women Voters

INSPIRATION

Originally from Buffalo, Marianne Pollak attended a League of Women Voters meeting when she and her husband moved to New Haven. “The League is nonpartisan and is concerned with the functions of government for community,” explains Marianne, whose enthusiastic engagement in the organization continued to Westchester and then Stamford, where she became president. “The League exposed me to many nonprofits,” she says.

“Because my husband spent so much time working in Asia, we travelled a lot, and I became aware of other people and communities,” she adds. “This broadens one’s perspective. No matter what color, what ethnic background—we are all people, and our needs are the same.”

And Marianne’s parents, avid gardeners, inspired her green thumb and concern for the environment.

COURAGE INTO ACTION

Marianne has served on numerous committees in the past thirty years. “I was a founding member of the Fairfield County Community Foundation (FCCF),” she says. She also served on the steering committee of its Fund for Women and Girls. She currently serves on the boards of Soundwaters, FCCF, The Bartlett Arboretum, League of Women Voters and Stamford Garden Club. Previously, Marianne served on the boards of Inspirica, the Connecticut Commission of Landscape Architects and the Bruce Museum and was board chair for the Stamford Museum and Nature Center. She also served on the Connecticut committee of the Regional Plan Association.

“I think I bring an awareness of the importance of engaging the community and helping the community understand the needs of nonprofits,” she says. “I hope I’ve helped these nonprofits become stronger organizations. The relationship between the board and staff is crucial. I’ve also encouraged other community members to be more engaged with nonprofits and the government.” Marianne adds, “I hope I have been effective in helping nonprofits who did excellent jobs of meeting their mission to communicate with the public, so that there is a greater understanding of how all of our lives are impacted when needs of the community are not met.”

HOPES AND DREAMS

“Covid has obviously changed our lives in many ways and perhaps even placed more emphasis on the needs of communities,” says Marianne. “As we go forward, how can we be more positive about engaging all peoples and all needs and having a vibrant, exciting community? I encourage people to be engaged in politics in the broadest sense: get out there, serve on a board, try to make a change. People talk about giving back; for me, it’s more about what I’ve gained being on boards. I hope going forward our government roles will be looked at in a more positive, broader way and that people will want to be engaged in their community—whether local, state or broader than that.” »

WORDS OF PRAISE

“Marianne is consistently engaged and dedicated to every organization that she is involved with. She brings strategic insight, thoughtful ideas and questions, consistent attendance, and is an excellent ambassador and supporter for all of her causes.”

—JUANITA JAMES, PRESIDENT & CEO, FAIRFIELD COUNTY COMMUNITY

FOUNDATION (2010 Light a Fire Honoree with her late husband, Dudley Williams, Most Involved Couple)

Harry Day

Lifetime Achievement

ORGANIZATIONS

Stamford Museum and Nature Center, Stamford Land Conservation Trust

INSPIRATION

“Giving back came to me naturally,” says Harry Day. “I felt I should do anything I can to help organizations that help kids and our citizens in Stamford. I just felt compelled to do that. It made me feel better. I have been very fortunate in many respects—to have great parents, to get into Yale University and Cornell Law School— so I felt responsible to do my best in helping others.”

COURAGE INTO ACTION

Day’s service in Stamford and Fairfield County as a whole could fill pages. He served on Stamford’s Board of Representatives for nearly two decades. He has served on the boards of Mill River Park Collaborative, Stamford Emergency Medical Services, Old Town Hall Redevelopment Agency and Smith House Health Care Center. He has been involved with Kids in Crisis for fifteen years, served as board chair for six years, and continues to be a generous contributor and fundraising organizer. “I was very proud and inspired during my time at Kids in Crisis,” says Day. “I got involved by first being able to persuade the city of Stamford to contribute.”

Day is currently president of Stamford Museum and Nature Center. “We were able to complete the building of the new farmhouse, which has brought many hundreds of new people to the Center,” explains Day. “Now we are working on getting the planetarium rebuilt, which will set the Center apart from anything like it in the metropolitan area.”

Day is also president of Stamford Land Conservation Trust, which owns and preserves over 450 acres of land across fifty-seven properties. (A tripling in the twenty years that Day has been involved.) “It’s a huge part of my life,” he says, “and of extreme importance to me. I love to save beautiful properties from development. I understand the need to build more homes, but it’s so important to have places people can escape to and enjoy the beauty of.”

HOPES AND DREAMS

“I hope for these organizations to bring people together and allow people to take advantage of their own abilities to learn things, enjoy life and make friends. That’s pretty much it!” says Day. “The Stamford Museum and Nature Center does all of those things and it’s an incredible organization. I’m very proud to be president.” G

WORDS OF PRAISE

“Harry is a leader who is professional, effective, caring and generous. Ever self-effacing, Harry is not one to seek the spotlight. He is a listener. He is financially generous, but does so with the belief that quiet and anonymous giving is the best kind. I can think of no other individual who has contributed more to the city of Stamford and to Fairfield County—just consider the sheer number of nonprofit and municipal organizations that he has been involved with over so many years. I have no doubt that he will continue his selfless quest to making the city of Stamford more livable, lively, interesting and beautiful with the enthusiasm, perseverance, dedication and graciousness that define Harry Day. ”

—LYNN VILLENCY COHEN, BOARD MEMBER, STAMFORD MUSEUM AND NATURE CENTER (2018 Light a Fire Honoree, Dedicated Supporter of the Arts)

THE GREAT DIVIDE

Connecticut is arguably the cradle of reproductive rights in America. But we have a dark history that predates our progressiveness. History, it would seem, is repeating itself across the country

by timothy dumas

Connecticut claims Anthony Comstock, if it must, as a native son. Born on a farm in New Canaan in 1844, Comstock was the Gilded Age’s archprude, its pig-eyed morality czar, its obsessive porn hunter with a badge and gun. He viewed himself as “a weeder in God’ s garden.” Others viewed him as “a five-foot ass.” Rather than let his Union Army comrades enjoy his ration of whiskey, Comstock would dump it on the ground. “Seems to be a feeling of hatred by some of the boys,” he noted in his journal. The same journal repeatedly hints at one temptation Comstock himself could not resist: masturbation. “I debased myself. I deplore my sinful weak nature.”

After the war Comstock placed himself rather too eagerly in “the mouth of the sewer”—Manhattan—as a solo anti-smut crusader. He sniffed out erotica’s shadowy marketplaces, purchased hot little items like nude photos and racy playing cards, and marched them over to the nearest precinct house, demanding an arrest. Comstock’s zeal impressed certain influential New Yorkers. In 1872 these wealthy men, J.P. Morgan among them, helped him found the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. From that perch Comstock swooped down not only upon bawdy novelties, but also upon belly dancing, nude paintings from Europe, classic literary works, contemporary plays (George Bernard Shaw was “an Irish smutdealer”), unclothed manikins, church bingo and “that which we call the love story.”

Comstock, a burly man with flowing muttonchop whiskers, relished bursting into book shops and private homes, a gaggle of reporters in tow. Near the end of his life (he died in 1915) he boasted of destroying 160 tons of obscene literature, collaring 3,697 “vile miscreants” and collecting $327,134.30 in fines. He also kept a morbid tally of the people he’d driven to suicide (at least sixteen). Had Comstock’s range extended no further than New York, history would have accounted him a mere footnote. Instead, in 1873, he went to Washington armed with dirty books and sex toys and, displaying these wares, convinced Congress to pass an anti-obscenity bill of breathtaking scope. The so-called Comstock Law made it illegal to mail “obscene, lewd or lascivious” publications and personal letters “containing any filthy, vile, or indecent thing.” But what was obscene? Postal inspectors confiscated everything from medical texts to Valentine’s Day cards, the latter by the thousand. (Not long after, the Supreme Court said that opening sealed mail required a warrant.)

The Comstock Law also banned selling, distributing and mailing all literature about contraception and abortion (not to mention mailing contraceptives and abortifacients themselves). These subjects now fell under the banner of “obscene.” Overnight a booming condom trade tailed off dramatically. Discreet ads for abortion providers—“Ladies’ Friend and Doctor”—vanished from city newspapers. Medical papers portraying the human body were plucked from the mails. Physicians ceased giving crucial advice about birth control to their patients. What yesterday was acceptable, today was criminal: violating the Comstock Law carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

The most fervid enforcer of the Comstock Law was Comstock himself. The U.S. Postal Service granted him sweeping powers as a “special agent,” and he used them with special ardor against women’s rights advocates. He arrested physician and birth control lecturer Sara B. Chase for procuring a syringe that women used to douche after sex (“I am preventing poor families from being burdened with children they cannot support,” she protested to an unmoved Comstock during his raid). He arrested the wealthy society abortionist Madame Restell by posing as an impoverished husband with too many mouths to feed. (Rather than face trial, she cut her throat in the bathtub of her Fifth Avenue mansion.) He tried to arrest Margaret Sanger, the mother of Planned Parenthood, for selling the birth control pamphlet Family Limitation, but nabbed her husband instead. (William Sanger spent thirty days in jail after a judge declared that he’d engaged in a “scheme to prevent motherhood.”)

Comstock pursued Ida Craddock, a writer of marriage manuals, with a crazed, Captain Ahab-like vengeance. It had been Craddock who defended belly dancing against Comstock’s efforts to shut it down at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Years later, still smarting, Comstock arrested her in New York for circulating “The Wedding Night,” her 1900 pamphlet containing frank advice about sex.

THE CASE THAT GOT US HERE How the stringently conservative Supreme Court got the opportunity to overturn Roe v. Wade

IN 2018

Mississippi passed a law that banned abortion at fifteen weeks of pregnancy. The state’s only abortion provider, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, sued, arguing the law violated constitutional rights established in the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. By a vote of 7-2, the Roe Court held that abortion was legal up to “viability,” the roughly twenty-four-week mark at which fetuses can theoretically survive outside the womb. (Thereafter states could prohibit abortion, except when the health of the mother was at risk.)

Jackson won its suit in district court. It won again in the extremely conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which wrote in 2019, “In an unbroken line dating to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s abortion cases have established (and affirmed, and re-affirmed) a woman’s right to choose an abortion before viability.”

Even so, last September Texas (which also falls under the Fifth Circuit’s purview) enacted an abortion law much stricter than Mississippi’s, banning the procedure at six weeks—before many women know they’re pregnant. To enforce the law, Texas devised a Wild West-style “bounty” system of citizen vigilantes, in which anyone learning of your post six-week abortion can sue to collect at least $10,000 from your abettors: the sister who drove you, the friend who lent you money, the physician who attended you. If the Mississippi law was unconstitutional, the Texas law must have been doubly so. Why, then, did Texas enact it?

ANSWER

The U.S. Supreme Court’s rightward lurch. President Trump installed three social conservatives, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, making for six conservative justices in all, a supermajority that some viewed as yearning to restore the moral climate of 1960, if not 1860. Worse, that supermajority seemed ill-gotten. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had denied Obama nominee Merrick Garland a hearing a full eight months before the 2016 election—too close to Election Day, was McConnell’s fatuous claim—and then without blushing, hastened Coney Barrett onto the Court eight days before the 2020 election. Democrats regarded these events as nothing shy of “theft.”

The seating of this new Court converged with the arrival on its doorstep of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Mississippi abortion case that had lost in two federal courts already. Granted a review before the Supreme Court, Mississippi decided to challenge Roe in boldest fashion. The state’s solicitor general, Scott Stewart, asked the Court not merely to chip away at Roe by permitting the fifteenweek ban, but to scrap Roe v. Wade altogether. No matter that Roe had been affirmed and reaffirmed; no matter that it was woven deeply into American life. Both Roe and Casey, Stewart argued, were simply wrong. “They have no basis in the Constitution.”

On the evening of May 2 Politico published a leaked draft of the Dobbs opinion. Written by Justice Samuel Alito, the draft signaled the majority’s whole hearted agreement with Mississippi: Roe and Casey must indeed be overturned. Pro-choice Americans reacted to the draft with shock and grief, but also with a touch of magical thinking: surely this was a worst-case scenario; surely Chief Justice John Roberts would step in to forge a compromise whereby Mississippi’s fifteen weeks became the most restrictive allowable standard. (Actually, Roberts tried until the last moment.)

It was not to be. On the morning of June 24, the Supreme Court released its 5-4 decision, little changed from the draft, overruling Roe. For the first time in American history, a firmly established constitutional right had been revoked from the people. Now, as Roberts had feared, a state of chaos reigns in which abortion is essentially murder in some states and perfectly legal in others, and in which the Supreme Court is widely distrusted, and will be for years to come. »

When Craddock was found guilty and sentenced to three months in a disease-ridden workhouse, Comstock “exulted with savage glee,” according to a spectator quoted in Amy Sohn’s book The Man Who Hated Women. No sooner was Craddock released than Comstock arrested her again, on the fraudulent charge of mailing the pamphlet to a minor girl. This time Craddock escaped a prison sentence by committing suicide. Just before she turned on the gas jet in her flat, she wrote a letter expressing the hope that her death would shock people into rethinking the “dreadful state of affairs which permits that unctuous sexual hypocrite, Anthony Comstock, to wax fat and arrogant, and to trample upon the liberties of the people.”

After Craddock’s suicide, people began to weary of Comstock. “Why don’t you suppress the Bible?” voices shouted, as he lectured in Brooklyn about obscene literature. Not long before Comstock’s own death, the socialist newspaper The Masses published a cartoon that neatly summed up the shifting attitude: A rotund Comstock has dragged a young woman by the collar of her nightgown into a courtroom. He tells the judge, “Your Honor, this woman gave birth to a naked child!”

Comstock may have been a relic, but the Comstock Law of 1873 lived ruthlessly on. Worse, twenty-four states, inspired by the federal law, passed “little Comstock laws” even stricter than the original. Connecticut’s was the strictest of all. Pushed through the state House in 1879 by P.T. Barnum, the showman and sometime politician, this “Act Concerning Offenses against Decency, Morality and Humanity” predictably forbade circulating information about contraceptives; but uniquely, it also forbade their use. Married couples could go to jail for employing condoms and diaphragms in the privacy of their bedrooms. And physicians could go to jail for counseling their use, even when pregnancy would have posed a grave danger to his patient.

None of this is ancient history. Our puritanical law of 1879 persisted until 1965, when the Supreme Court ruled, in Griswold v. Connecticut, the ban on contraceptives to be unconstitutional. “We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights,” wrote William O. Douglas in his majority opinion. In other words, a “right of privacy” is a natural right, a bedrock principle of any free society. But it took Griswold to articulate privacy as a constitutional right in matters of sex and family life. Though the word “privacy” is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, the concept of privacy—in the sense of being let alone to live as we choose, without unwarranted government intrusion—is threaded throughout. “Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives?” Douglas asked. “The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship.”

Here is why Griswold matters so critically today: It laid the foundation for all privacy cases to come—most notably Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion up to “viability,” the

1821

Connecticut enacts the country’s first criminal abortion statute. Stemming from a sex scandal in the town of Griswold (see main story), the statute outlaws abortion by “poison” when a woman is “quick with child”—that is, after she has felt the first kick of the fetus in her womb. The abortionist can be punished by life in prison; the woman who undergoes the abortion is not culpable.

1850

1860

Connecticut revises its abortion law, in keeping with a national trend. Now abortion at any stage by any means (herbal concoctions or “tools”) is illegal, unless to save the life of the mother. And now, too, the woman is guilty of a felony.

roughly twenty-four-week mark at which fetuses can theoretically survive outside the womb. (Thereafter states could prohibit abortion, except when the life or health of the mother was at risk.) All of that changed on June 24, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson (Mississippi) Women’s Health Organization. The Court could have simply upheld Mississippi’s ban on abortion after fifteen weeks, as Chief Justice John Roberts had wished, but the five conservative justices decided to go big: They overturned Roe v. Wade and the twenty-odd cases that flowed from it. For the first time in American history, a constitutionally-established right had been snatched back from the people.

Samuel Alito’s majority opinion adopted a tone of barely suppressed hostility. He offered zero respect for a precedent deeply woven into American society—one that women relied upon for a half century to escape poverty, abusive relationships, troubled pregnancies, and difficult lives, not to mention to preserve their freedom. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” he wrote. “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak.” (In fairness to Alito, legal scholars of all persuasions have picked at the Roe opinion; few of them, however, take issue with its bottom line.) Then Alito reached back to old, male-centric sources to buttress his opinion, including seventeenth- century English jurist Matthew Hale, who described abortion as “a great crime” but also sent women to death for witchcraft and wrote that rape in marriage isn’t rape.

Supreme Court experts were aghast at Alito’s insensitivity. “The

1873

Anthony Comstock, New York’s chief vice cop, persuades Congress to pass a sweeping obscenity law. The Comstock Act makes it illegal to send “obscene” or “immoral” materials through the mail. The law makes no attempt to define “obscene,” but it explicitly includes anything to do with contraception and abortion. Violating the Comstock Act can land one in prison for five years. Comstock himself rents a post office box in Greenwich in order to entrap New Yorkers into sending material across the border, thus turning a state crime into a federal one, according to Amy Sohn in her book The Man Who Hated Women.

1935

The Connecticut Birth Control League quietly— and illegally—opens a clinic in Hartford. Clinics in Greenwich, Stamford and Norwalk follow. But when a birth control clinic opens in Waterbury in 1938, Catholic authorities pressure police to enforce the 1879 statute. The clinic’s founder and two physicians are arrested, though ultimately not prosecuted. The state’s birth control clinics shut down.

1875 1900

1879

States pass “little Comstock laws” that often go further than the federal one. Connecticut’s is the strictest of all. Not only does it regard information about abortion or birth control obscene, but it forbids outright the use of contraceptives. And it punishes an abettor (say, a physician) “as if he were the principal offender.”

1950

1961

Estelle Griswold, executive director of the Planned Parent League of Connecticut, and C. Lee Buxton, a Yale School of Medicine professor and gynecologist, open a birth control clinic in New Haven, hoping to draw legal action. Local detectives promptly raid the clinic and arrest Griswold and Buxton. They are convicted of abetting a crime, and the state Supreme Court upholds both the convictions and the archaic 1879 statute.

1965

In the landmark Griswold v. Connecticut, the U.S. Supreme Court declares that Connecticut’s ban on contraception violates the Constitution’s implicit right to privacy, marking the first time the Court unequivocally asserts that right. The decision lays the groundwork for Roe v. Wade.

opinion feels like it was written by arsonists,” noted Dahlia Lithwick, a lawyer who writes about the Supreme Court. Reva Siegel, a Yale law professor specializing in the Constitution, sent us an article in which she wrote, “The decision so dramatically limits women’s constitutional liberties that one can almost hear the chants of ‘lock her up!’ from Trump’s supporters.” (In Texas, performing an abortion is now punishable by up to life in prison.)

Then there was Clarence Thomas. In his concurring opinion he raised the specter of the Court “correct[ing] the error” of other celebrated privacy cases, including Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which legalized consensual gay sex, Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which legalized same-sex marriage, and even Griswold, which was suddenly back in the news not as a venerable precursor to Roe, but as a threatened right.

Thus does a straight line run from 1879 to the present moment. Somewhere, the ghost of Anthony Comstock is smiling.

PAVING THE WAY

Today Connecticut is regarded as a moderately liberal state. But it overwhelmingly supports abortion rights, with 68 percent in favor in all—or most—cases. (Only Massachusetts, Hawaii and Vermont poll higher.) Ours was the first state in the nation, in 1990, to codify Roe into its own laws, and remains one of only sixteen states to have done so. And in May, before the fall of Roe, Connecticut was first to pass a law protecting out-of-state women who receive abortions here, as well as those who provide or facilitate abortions.

State Rep. Matt Blumenthal of Stamford got the ball rolling late last year. Noting the bleak tenor of the oral arguments in Dobbs, Blumenthal understood that Roe was probably doomed. “And I wanted to make sure that we in Connecticut were protected,” he says. Working with Rep. Jillian Gilchrest of West Hartford, he consulted an all-star team of law professors and formulated legislation now known as the Reproductive Freedom Defense Act. (In addition to its protections, the act expands abortion access by permitting qualified nurses and physician assistants to perform suction abortions, the most common kind of clinical abortion.)

New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Delaware soon copied us—and then red states moved audaciously to counter these new protections. The conservative Thomas More Society drafted model legislation that would forbid people in abortion-ban states to get abortions in legal states such as ours, and it’s only a matter of time before legislatures enshrine the society’s handiwork into law. Blumenthal predicts a collision between the two sets of laws: It’s wholly conceivable that we’ll see a Texas prosecutor go after a Connecticut physician. “But we’re not going to shrink from defending our doctors, our nurses, our residents, and people who come here for care,” Blumenthal says. “We’re going to stand up and say, ‘Texas, don’t mess with Connecticut.’” (Zari Watkins, COO of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, informs us that last year

1972

Connecticut legalizes abortion by order of the U.S. District Court in Hartford. This important but largely forgotten case, called Abele v. Markle, began with Yale law student Ann Hill’s anger at having to choose between an illegal abortion and bearing a child she didn’t want (she chose the abortion). The state reacts to the nullification of its 1860 abortion law by obtusely passing an even stricter law, requiring an Abele v. Markle II to strike it down. District Judge Jon O. Newman’s majority opinion establishes “viability” as the most reasonable line between the rights of the woman and the rights of the fetus, and his thinking will markedly influence the Supreme Court’s Roe opinion.

1975 1990

1992

The Supreme Court case Planned Parenthood v. Casey affirms Roe and clarifies its “viability” standard (dispensing with the somewhat muddy trimester scheme). But Casey also permits certain restrictions—waiting periods, parental consent—that make abortion access more difficult.

1973

Roe v. Wade establishes abortion as a constitutional right. After the first trimester, however, that right is not absolute: States may regulate abortion to protect women’s health in the second trimester, and prohibit it altogether after viability (which the Court locates at 24 to 28 weeks but is now 23 or 24 weeks) except when the life or health of the mother is at risk.

1990

Connecticut is the first state to codify the terms of Roe into its own laws, ensuring that abortion would remain legal, prior to viability of the fetus, even if Roe were overturned. Gov. William A. O’Neill, a Catholic who personally opposes abortion, signs the bill into law.

Texas women, in response to new restrictions, began traveling to Connecticut for abortion care.)

How did Connecticut become a beacon of reproductive rights, when we were once the most repressive state in the union? The story is instructive: Let it begin with Sarah Grosvenor. In 1742 the nineteen-year-old farmer’s daughter from Pomfret became pregnant by her lover, Amasa Sessions, twenty-seven, son of a local tavern keeper. At Sessions’ insistence, Grosvenor took an abortifacient to do away with the fetus, but the powder merely made her ill. So Sessions hired a “practitioner of physick” named John Hallowell to perform a surgical procedure. Two days later Grosvenor miscarried, and soon after that she contracted a uterine infection, grew feverish and sank away into death. After an unexplained gap of three years, authorities arrested Sessions and Hallowell—the first known abortion-related arrests in America. For unknown reasons Sessions was let off the hook, but Hallowell was found guilty and sentenced to twenty-nine lashes and two hours’ public humiliation at the gallows. Before he could be punished, he broke out of jail and fled to Rhode Island, never to return.

Abortion was not uncommon in Colonial America. It was tolerated so long as it occurred before “quickening,” the first kick of the fetus in the womb, at four to five months. In 1748 Ben Franklin published an abortifacient recipe—a mixture of mildly toxic herbs—in a widely circulated book of practical knowledge. Numerous popular medical books of the era proffered similar advice. So when Samuel Alito argues in his Dobbs opinion that abortion can’t be a constitutional right, because the practice is “not deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition” (a dubious standard to begin with: was women’s suffrage deeply rooted?), he’s factually incorrect. Though there was ambivalence about abortion because it could be dangerous, the practice was accepted by custom and by common law.

The first criminal abortion statute was enacted in 1821—courtesy of Connecticut. Why us? The immediate reason concerned a religious sex scandal in the town of Griswold. In 1817 a middle-aged preacher named Ammi Rogers impregnated a twenty-one-year-old congregant, Asenath Smith, and pressured her to ingest an abortifacient concoction. The young woman fell violently ill but survived, delivering a stillborn baby. Authorities got wind of the minister’s outrageous behavior and took redemptive action: They convicted Rogers of assault and jailed him for two years. Then they passed the historic 1821 statute, which outlawed abortion by “poison” when a woman was quick with child. The law clearly aimed to protect women, not fetuses, since it left in place the understanding that abortion before quickening was legal. (Also, the law punished only the abortionist; the woman was viewed as a victim of schemers like Ammi Rogers.)

In 1860 Connecticut hardened its law to ban abortion at any stage of pregnancy and extended punishment to recipients. The moral

2000

2022

The Supreme Court, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturns Roe v. Wade by a 5-4 vote. No longer a constitutional right, abortion returns to each state to decide for itself. But as Connecticut’s history shows, the will of state officials does not always reflect the will of the people.

2022

Anticipating the fall of Roe, Connecticut passes the Reproductive Freedom Defense Act, which protects patients who travel here for abortion care, as well as those who provide abortions or otherwise help patients. The act also expands access to abortion by permitting qualified advanced practice clinicians to perform aspiration, or suction, abortions.

climate around abortion in America had darkened considerably, but an evolving concern for the fetus was only part of the story. In 1857 physicians, led by Horatio Robinson Storer of Boston, embarked on a vigorous anti-abortion crusade that resulted in a virtual nationwide ban. On one hand, physicians worried about the danger of abortion practiced by numberless “irregulars,” midwives and homeopaths without formal training; newspapers were rife with stories of young women dying of abortions gone awry. On the other hand, the physicians, almost exclusively men, objected to the irregulars, who were mainly women, cutting into their business turf. (Women lacked the right to vote and so were powerless to counter the physicians’ crusade.)

Storer believed abortion was murder. Many who held this view, though, did so through a fog of racism. They obsessed about white Anglo-Saxon Protestants committing “race suicide,” as supposedly inferior stock—poor Blacks and immigrants—procreated with abandon (that is, without recourse to abortion and contraception). Despite the new criminal statutes, abortion in America exploded between 1840 and 1880. An 1870 poll of Philadelphia physicians called it an “epidemic.” At the same time in New York, four hundred “abortoria” were hiding in plain sight, according to the Times. In 1905, as talk of race suicide peaked, Connecticut’s Waterbury Evening Democrat opined, “It would be interesting to know how many native-born American children there would be if native-born American parents did not transgress the law of God and nature by abortion, infanticide and onanism.”

Though women of all classes, races and religions got abortions, the typical patient was Protestant, married and middle- to upper- class. Usually these women sought to escape an endless cycle of child-bearing and child-rearing, or they’d endured dangerous pregnancies and worried about losing their lives in a kind of pregnancy roulette. (The single young woman “in trouble” made the papers when she died of a botched abortion, but she was a less typical case.) Abortion among Catholics was comparatively rare, because they tended to be poor, and because the Church thunderously forbade both abortion and contraception. Curiously, when Roman Catholic leaders distinguished between the two modes of baby-prevention, contraception was often the greater evil: “To take a life after its inception is a horrible crime,” New York Archbishop Patrick Hayes said in 1921. “But to prevent life that the Creator is about to bring into being is satanic.”

TURNING THE TIDE

By the twentieth century Connecticut had shaken off some of its Puritan mud. One notable progressive mud-shaker was Katharine Hepburn of Hartford, mother of the actress, who in 1923 cofounded the Connecticut Birth Control League, or CBCL. This was a coura-

geous undertaking. Our 1879 Comstock law was very much alive, and the topic of birth control still possessed an aura of transgression and sin. Then there were the Roman Catholic multitudes. Immigration in the late nineteenth century—from Ireland, Italy and Eastern Europe—had flooded the state with Catholics and austere Catholic officialdom, which exerted immense power over its largely Democratic flock, including a burgeoning number of Catholic politicians.

Birth controllers like Hepburn brought out the ogre in the Church. Hartford Bishop John G. Murray called contraception a “perversion” and observed that the northern European races, “the finest type of people,” were “doomed to extinction, unless each family produces at least four children.” Francis J. Sugrue, a priest from South Norwalk, assailed birth control’s “lecherous leaders.” Hartford priest Andrew J. Kelly charged Hepburn with “naked paganism.” But the birth controllers remained steadfast, if a little awed by the ferocity of their foes. A CBCL executive informed his colleagues, “Catholic opposition in the state is rising like a tidal wave.”

Republicans, who monopolized the state legislature and tended to be Protestant, had little stomach for social change; they were of the old stock that had won for Connecticut its reputation as “the land of steady habits.” One exception was Epaphroditus Peck, a lawyer from Bristol. He argued before the state House in 1929 that the old Comstock-Barnum statute was “essentially religious legislation,” a claim that seems eerily current, as today conservative Christians lead the charge in banning abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Countering the enlightened Peck were myriad voices like that of Rep. Caroline T. Platt of Milford, who claimed that permitting contraception would “open the way for every girl to become a prostitute.”

Connecticut’s birth control advocates succeeded in putting the issue before a shyly amenable public, but that was all—they could not budge the legislative needle. A lively faction from Greenwich, led by Nancy Carnegie Rockefeller and Florence Borden Darrach, responded to that intransigence by opening a clinic in Port Chester in 1932. “At long last Connecticut—almost—had a clinic,” wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David J. Garrow in his magisterial Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade. As it happens, Garrow grew up in Old Greenwich and graduated from Greenwich High School in 1971. It is his book that first traced America’s battle for the right to privacy back to a succession of fierce Connecticut women.

In 1935 Hepburn’s friend Sallie Pease, president of the Connecticut Birth Control League, quietly opened the state’s actual first clinic, in Hartford. By 1936 Greenwich, Stamford and New Haven, too, had clinics. Then came Norwalk, Danbury, Bridgeport—and fatally, Waterbury, the state’s most Catholic city. The Church smoked with indignation. The clinic was raided. Police arrested its founder, Clara McTernan, along with two young doctors. “Then everything across the state shuts down,” Garrow tells us from his home in Pittsburgh. “Just like we saw in Texas with abortion twelve months ago.” (Garrow is referring to the Texas law of last September that banned abortion at six weeks. After Dobbs, Texas established a near-total ban.)

As birth control clinics sprouted up around the country, Connecticut remained dark. Decades passed; finally our state alone banned the possession and use of contraceptives (Massachusetts banned their sale and distribution, but not their use). In 1961 a Connecticut couple and their physician managed to get their appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court, in Poe v. Ullman, but the Court effectively punted: Since there had been no arrest, there was no injury—a decision that curiously discounted the injury of denying medical care to a woman (“Pauline Poe”) who had given birth to three children with fatal defects. On November 1 of that year, Estelle Griswold, head of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut (as the CBCL was now called) opened a birth control clinic at 79 Trumbull Street in New Haven. On November 2 she invited reporters to the clinic and cheerfully explained that, in frank defiance of the law, PPLC had begun providing advice and contraceptives to married women. The provocation worked. Upon reading the news on November 3, James G. Morris, a Catholic father of five, worked himself into such a lather that he complained officially to New Haven police, demanding they shutter the clinic and arrest the outlaws. In comments to the press, Morris went full Comstock, comparing 79 Trumbull Street to a house of prostitution. “Marital

Fairfield County residents hit the Women’s Marches in Washington, D.C. and New York City in 2021. (opposite)The First Amendment carved in stone in Washington D.C. (this page top row) Coline Jenkins with photo of her great-great-grandmother, suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton • Katharine Brydson and Sofia Giannuzzi (bottom row) Joshua Dorries, Ned Marks, John T. Creedon Jr., Jack Reynolds, Molly Checksfield • Riley Klotz • Mary and Congressman Jim Himes with daughters Linley and Emma

relations,” he said, “are for procreation and not entertainment.”

That afternoon two police detectives “raided” the clinic. Estelle Griswold could not have been more delighted. She gave the detectives a leisurely tour, supplied them with illicit literature, and even directed them to clients who would happily brandish their diaphragms and birth control pills. On November 10 Griswold and Dr. C. Lee Buxton, the clinic’s medical director, were congenially arrested and released on $100 bond each. Thus began the most important privacy case in American history.

If Connecticut’s legislature was bizarrely out-of-step with the times in regard to birth control, its courts did not care to recognize it. The Sixth Circuit convicted Griswold and Buxton and fined them $100 each, having rejected their free speech and marital privacy arguments; the appellate court upheld the convictions, claiming, with unintentional humor, that the state could deter “practices that tend to negate its survival”; and the state Supreme Court blandly agreed with these rulings: the 1879 law had survived a lot of challenges, so why shouldn’t it survive this one?

Garrow notes a central irony in all of this: the Catholic control of the Democratic Party that had kept the antiquated law on the books also sealed our date with the U.S. Supreme Court. Connecticut’s repressiveness had ignited the forces of rebellion.

RALLYING CRY

It is among the saddest photographs ever taken. The black-andwhite image, from June of 1964, shows a lifeless woman lying facedown on the floor of a tatty room at the Norwich Motel—naked, knees folded under her, hind quarters bloodied from a botched abortion. The woman was Gerri Santoro, a twenty-eight-year-old mother of two from the town of Coventry. She was married to Sam Santoro, who had moved the family to California, and who beat Gerri and the girls until they fled back to Connecticut.

Gerri took up with a coworker named Clyde Dixon, by whom she became pregnant. Sam then announced his intention to come East. The thought of him finding her pregnant struck such fear into Gerri that she submitted to Clyde’s clueless doctoring, there at the Norwich Motel. And when she began to hemorrhage, Clyde bolted, leaving Gerri to die alone. A maid found her in the morning.

Mysteriously, the photograph, taken by Norwich police, surfaced in Ms. magazine in 1973 under the headline “Never Again.” Then the photo began appearing on placards at marches. Thus did the appalling death of Gerri Santoro, a farm girl from Coventry, Connecticut, become a galvanic symbol of the pro-choice movement, a symbol of the horrors that Roe v. Wade had vanquished forever. Or so it seemed. »

“EVEN THOUGH WE’VE BEEN VERY PROGRESSIVE AND TRAILBLAZING, THAT COULD SWITCH ON A DIME IF OUR LEADERSHIP CHANGES.”

—DANIELLE EASON, PLANNED PARENTHOOD ADVOCATE

Nearly fifty years later Roe is gone. A few in Connecticut greeted the news warmly. Our Catholic bishops noted that “we have heard many voices cry out for the innocent lives of the unborn” and that America had reached “a most hopeful and encouraging moment.” Peter Wolfgang, who heads the Family Institute of Connecticut, said, “This is the liberation of the unborn child” and vowed to keep working toward a “Connecticut where every unborn child is protected in law and welcomed in life.”

Most, however, greeted Dobbs with intense dismay. “It stings—it stings,” says Zari Watkins of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England. “This is about the patients and their loss of access. Abortion is healthcare. We are denying folks access to basic healthcare— and, yes, it’s devastating.” Danielle Eason of Greenwich, an abortion rights advocate who has served as a “hand holder” to women getting abortions at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Stamford, says, “It’s a slap in the face to women who, for fifty years, had the right to bodily autonomy and agency over their lives.” Now she fears for the millions of girls and women in states like Texas, Missouri and Louisiana who lack the wherewithal to travel to states like Connecticut. “It’s an uphill battle they just won’t be able to climb.”

Eason herself had an abortion several years ago at Greenwich Hospital. “My husband and I are both Tay-Sachs carriers,” she says. Tay-Sachs disease manifests itself soon after a child is born, and results in catastrophic problems, including paralysis, as the nerves in the brain and spinal column disintegrate. It chills Eason to imagine being poor and living in Texas under the tyranny of that state’s ban.

“If I lived in Texas right now, I’d potentially have to carry that pregnancy to term—which has its own risks—and then give birth to a child who has an inevitable fatal outcome by the time they’re a toddler. And it’s a painful death.” Genetic testing let the Eason family avoid that fate. But the test itself would pose a problem elsewhere. Since it can’t be done until the eleventh week of pregnancy, states that ban abortion (thirteen and counting) or restrict it to six weeks (Ohio and Georgia) would force upon the Easons a protracted family tragedy.

New abortion laws have already ushered in a period of medical chaos. In Louisiana, a thirty-six-year-old woman was denied an abortion after an ultrasound showed her fetus to be missing part of its skull. In South Carolina, a nineteen-year-old carrying a nonviable fetus risked death by sepsis—or merely losing her uterus—when physicians sent her home, because the law precluded extraction before the fetus died. In Texas, a woman whose water broke at eighteen weeks—rendering delivery of a live baby hopeless—opted for an abortion, but the law was so vague that no physician would perform it. She was sent home to get sicker—which she did.

“We read about women walking around with dead fetuses for two weeks, because practitioners don’t know how to maneuver in this new landscape,” Eason observes. She does not judge women who have abortions for less urgent reasons than these. “Abortion happens for all sorts of reasons. You can’t pick and choose which ones are valid or not valid. It’s a very private matter, unique to each person.”

THE HUMAN TOLL

Birth control is no longer contested territory in America, though we shouldn’t speak too soon. Efforts are afoot to reclassify certain contraceptives as abortifacients, lending real weight to Clarence Thomas’s threat to undo Griswold. Abortion is another story. The country is hopelessly divided, though a solid majority of Americans, about 61 percent, are pro-choice in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center. Surprisingly, given Church teaching, 58 percent of Catholics think abortion should be legal, and 68 percent were opposed to overturning Roe, believing abortion to be a matter of individual conscience, says the advocacy group Catholics for Choice. (Protestants, various as their denominations are, diverge sharply on abortion: 60 percent of “mainline” Protestants favor choice, including 79 percent of Episcopalians, while only 33 of evangelicals do. Jews are notably pro-choice, polling at 83 percent, according to Pew.)

About 37 percent of Americans are anti-choice in all or most cases. While a fraction of these would leave Roe in place anyway— in deference to the conscience—the majority of them liken abortion at any stage to the murder of a living human. Indeed, anti-abortion politicians like Ted Cruz speak of Roe as permitting “the deaths of 63 million American children” as if they’d been cut down on the playgrounds of suburbia. No wonder the debate is so poisonous.

“Both sides are controlled by purists,” David Garrow, the historian, contends. A self-described pro-choice moderate, Garrow thinks John Roberts offered a reasonable compromise in upholding Mississippi’s fifteen-week ban yet also wanting to preserve Roe. “It was crystal clear during oral arguments that the chief justice

wanted to find some middle ground,” he says. “And you know, John Roberts represents America.”

Polling does affirm that pro-choice Americans grow uneasier about abortion as pregnancy progresses. “For most everything up to ten to twelve weeks, an abortion can be done largely with vacuum aspiration,” Garrow explains. “You don’t have to do a D & E, using curettes and pulling things out, piece by piece. Once you get past about twelve or thirteen weeks, though, it’s unpleasant. There are a lot of pro-choice clinicians who won’t go past sixteen or eighteen or twenty weeks, because it increasingly looks like an actual baby.”

Most of the roughly 900,000 abortions in America annually are performed early. Ninety-three percent occur within fourteen weeks—the first trimester—and the majority of these are accomplished with pills. Only one percent of abortions are performed after twenty weeks. Yet as the ramifications of Dobbs play out, many are revising their willingness for “middle ground” compromise, as they learn, for instance, that fetal abnormalities often go undetected until a twenty-week ultrasound. There are other reasons why people wait to get abortions. Through no fault of their own, some women are slow to realize they’re pregnant, and when they do realize it, a combination of saving $500 (to say nothing of travel costs) for an abortion and booking an appointment at a typically backlogged provider pushes out the timeframe exasperatingly.

Meanwhile the anti-abortion movement is embracing ever more extreme tactics. Some Republican-led states, like Arizona and Georgia, now legally define “personhood” as beginning at fertilization. What do they make of the fact that, in the natural course of things, as many as half of fertilized eggs fail to implant in the uterine wall? Are these millions of “persons” dead children? And what of the hundreds of thousands of human embryos—or should we say children—locked away in freezers? Where’s their child tax credit?

Most people do agree that abortion raises profound moral and philosophical questions. Dr. Paul Lakeland, an eminent Catholic writer and a professor of Catholic studies at Fairfield University, tells us the Church should drop its “nonsensical” argument against birth control. But abortion? It’s infinitely knottier. “Deep down I think most Catholics understand that sometimes there are competing values, and sometimes very hard decisions have to be taken,” Lakeland says by email. “All killing is objectively evil, but there are some circumstances where killing is justified: war, self-defense, and…” He leaves the sentence unfinished.

One thing seems indisputable: the Dobbs decision is increasing the store of human misery in America. As soon as the decision came down, clinics were beset with calls from sobbing women. Women and girls already in waiting rooms were told to their bewilderment that they had to go home. Protests erupted outside the Supreme Court building and in cities across the country. Days later, thousands of protesters converged on the White House, chanting “We won’t go back.”

But nothing could be done. Bans took hold in thirteen states, and ten more may follow. Other states (Ohio, Georgia) went in for restrictions so severe they are tantamount to bans. Then there was Kansas. The state has abortion protections in its constitution, but Republican lawmakers, who vastly outnumber Democrats, sought

IN MAY, BEFORE THE FALL OF ROE, CONNECTICUT WAS FIRST TO PASS A LAW PROTECTING OUT-OF-STATE WOMEN WHO RECEIVE ABORTIONS HERE…

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal speaking at Title X gag rule rally in Washington, D.C. in 2018

Alexis McGill Johnson, CEO of Planned Parenthood, speaks to abortion rights supporters at a rally organized by the Center for Reproductive Rights in 2020.

to revoke them the only way they could—through a public referendum. The people of Kansas, despite their relative conservatism, voted overwhelmingly to keep the protections in place, thus sending a shiver through the Republican body politic. Most states that lost abortion rights, though, did get to decide for themselves.

What, then, is the human cost of Dobbs? Women will have to forgo jobs and schooling. They’ll be trapped in poverty. They’ll have to scare up costly aid for children with disabilities. They’ll be tied to abusers and rapists. And they’ll attempt dangerous methods of abortion.

“A lot of women are going to die. It’s as simple as that,” says Kay Maxwell, past president of the League of Women Voters of the United States, former board chairman of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England and former executive director of the World Affairs Forum. “We know that a ban on abortions is not going to stop abortions from happening.”

Not all the deaths will happen via makeshift abortion. Imagine the desperation of the sixteen-year-old in Dallas or St. Louis or Baton Rouge who can neither get an abortion nor tell her parents she’s pregnant: Suicide will be an answer. In El Salvador, where abortion is outlawed, unwanted pregnancy is a leading cause of teen suicide. Maxwell sees forcing a person to bear a child as an act of cruelty. This election season, certain conservative politicians have called pregnancy by rape “an opportunity” and God’s “silver lining.”

“How about this awful situation with the ten-year-old in Ohio?” Maxwell asks. “I mean, you can’t make this up.”

On July 1 an Ohio rape produced this horrific headline: “10-YearOld Girl Denied Abortion.” The girl got one in Indiana. But the story had a disturbing coda: Indiana’s attorney general, an anti-choice Catholic Republican named Todd Rokita, announced a seemingly unwarranted investigation into Caitlin Bernard, the ob/gyn who performed the abortion, hinting that her license hung in the balance. Why? Simply to intimidate her, thought Bernard. She had made the “mistake” of speaking out in favor of reproductive rights.

It seems there are many weeders in God’s garden. Abortion providers have bore witness to a particularly dark strain of them. Since 1977 the National Abortion Federation has recorded eleven murders, nearly 500 assaults, forty-two bombings, and 196 arsons perpetrated against abortion providers, volunteers and patients. Last year alone, the federation said, there were thirteen cases of stalking, 182 threats of harm or death, and thousands upon thousands of hate calls and hate emails.

What is really going on here? “In simplistic terms, power over women,” says Maxwell, who volunteers at Planned Parenthood in Stamford, shepherding patients past anti-choice protesters who routinely gather there. “Not very long ago we celebrated the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to vote. Women have struggled and fought for rights all along. I’m old enough to have lived through the time when women couldn’t get their own credit cards. And yet I never thought that a right gained would be taken away.”

Maxwell sees a broader pattern of individual rights under attack— healthcare, voting, LGBTQ—and laments, “Everything seems to be turning backwards. Everything I’ve worked for and cared about through my lifetime, seems to have…” she trails off. “I mean, the Fifties were fine in some respects but not so fine in a lot of others, and I feel like that’s right back where we are.”

She sees hope, however, in the generation of young women now waking to the shocking realization that rights they were born with aren’t necessarily here to stay. “They have gotten more engaged. I don’t think it occurred to 90 percent of them that any of this could happen.”

Danielle Eason prefers to think of our Connecticut “safe haven” as not entirely safe. Ten years ago, who thought Roe was truly endangered? “Even though we’ve been very progressive and trailblazing, that could switch on a dime if our leadership changes,” she says. “So, when local candidates are asked about their beliefs on this topic and they say, ‘It doesn’t matter what my beliefs are, nothing is going to change in Connecticut,’ that should be a red flag. It says that person does not think women’s reproductive healthcare is a priority. We need to be very careful with our local elections and our state makeup, because those people in Hartford are the ones who will have the power to make this decision in the end. Not me or you.” G