Emily Enos Pechefsky

Emily Enos Pechefsky passed on Monday, 15 December 2014, in Brooklyn NY, after battling Parkinson’s disease for 20 years. She was born in Topeka, Kansas, 29 April 1933, the eldest of seven children of Allen and Marjorie Newell Enos of rural Perry. Her role was to be first sibling to climb a tree, walk to the one-room school, hit a baseball, listen to opera, work at the country store, and attend college. She studied English and French at University of Kansas, and was thrilled to win a graduate scholarship to Columbia University, where she met her husband Howard S. Pechefsky, from The Bronx, and earned an MA in English. She continued graduate work at New York University, edited science manuscripts for many years at Science Typographers, Medford L.I., and taught English at Dowling College in Oakdale, L.I. Living in Patchogue and Brooklyn, which she made home for her children and grandchildren, didn’t offer many opportunities to regress to the tomboy of her youth, but she never lost her love of being out-of-doors, in her garden or among the trees of Prospect Park. Reading was always her favorite enterprise, however, and one she nurtured in her children and wider family, even as the cruel advance of Parkinson’s made that increasingly difficult and finally impossible.
Howard preceded her in death in 1982. Also predeceased were her parents, a sister, Mary Sue Layton, and a brother, Zimri. Surviving are her daughter, Rebecca Pechefsky and husband, Erik Ryding, of Brooklyn; her son, David, wife, Cena Tejani, and granddaughters, Tehmina and Shirin, also of Brooklyn. Her siblings, Paul, Virginia Richards, Newell, and Randy also survive.
A memorial service at the family farm in Perry is planned for April 2015. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests contributions to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, which Emily loved. Donations can be made in her name at http://www.metopera.org/metopera/support
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