Obituary of Eleanor Bried Kingsbury

Eleanor Bried Kingsbury, a life-long resident of Fairview Lake, Tafton, PA, died peacefully on May 29, 2011, at her home in New York City. She was 102 years old. Mrs. Kingsbury was born on April 6, 1909, in Englewood, New Jersey, to the late James L. Bried and Mary Murray Bried, both natives of Hawley and the Lake. Mrs. Kingsbury grew up during summers at the Lakeside home of her late grandmother, Ellen Weldon Murray, until after her father built the Bried's own home, "Tall Trees," across the cove in 1925. She was proud of her family's Hawley roots. Her great grandmother, Mary Stanton Weldon, lived in "The Stone House" on upper Church Street in Hawley. Her grandfather, Edward V. Murray, built and owned the Murray Building and the former Opera House on downtown Main Street. In the late 1920's, Mrs. Kingsbury's Uncle, Joseph Murray, constructed Settlors Inn for a group of Hawley businessmen before the Great Depression delayed its opening. She always said that the best part of each trip she enjoyed with her late husband, Frederick H. Kingsbury, Jr. , who predeceased her in 1989, was her return to Fairview Lake. Mrs. Kingsbury was graduated from Marymount Academy in 1926 and from Marymount College in 1930. She enjoyed the arts, was a patron of the Metropolitan Opera, and actively supported the Metropolitan Museum, St. Barnabas Hospital, the English Speaking Union, The Helen Decker Blough Public Library in Hawley, PA, and the Dorflinger-Suydam Wildlife Sanctuary and Glass Museum in nearby White Mills, PA. Mrs. Kingsbury was an avid reader, especially of The New York Times and The New Yorker, and she frequented arts and current events programs at the Colony Club in New York. All her life, she played golf and did beautiful needlepoint. In later years, she fly-fished for trout on the streams of Blooming Grove Hunting and Fishing Club, and for salmon in Canada. Mrs. Kingsbury's son. William P. O'Donnell, III, of Melbourne, FL, passed away in 2006. She is survived by her daughter, Ellen O'Donnell Page and son-in-law, George A. Page, Jr., of Marblehead, MA; four grandsons, William Hurd Page, Andrew Weldon Page, James Ramsen O'Donnell and Jonathon Weldon O'Donnell; nine great-grandchildren; two stepchildren, Hope Kingsbury Register and Frederick H. Kingsbury, III, both of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts; and six step-grandchildren. A Memorial Mass will be said for Mrs. Kingsbury at Queen of Peace Church in Hawley, at 10 o'clock a.m. on Monday, June 6th. Burial will be private. Arrangements are handled by Teeters' Funeral Chapel, Inc., 505 Church Street, Hawley. The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to The Helen Decker Blough Public Library, 103 Main Street, Hawley, PA 18428; or the Dorfliger-Suydam Glass Museum, P.O. 356, White Mills, PA 18473.