|
Elizabeth F. Balco was born on August 21, 1940 to Peter and Helen (Haveles) Farfaras in New York City. She moved with her family to Danielson, Connecticut, in 1948. Ellie, as she was called throughout her life, attended Danielson Grammar School and Killingly Memorial School, and graduated from Killingly High School in 1957. She graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1961 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics. She began working in the field of education, teaching mathematics at Ansonia High School and then at the Norwich Free Academy. While teaching, she earned a master's degree from the University of Connecticut in Guidance Counseling. In 1964, she married George J. Balco of Ansonia, Connecticut, and they moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, where she taught mathematics and was a guidance counselor at Central Junior High School. The birth of her children Greg and Catharine began a ten-hear hiatus from teaching, and in 1980 she returned as a part-time computer coordinator and mathematics teacher at the Greenwich Country Day School. As her children grew and became students at the same school, she became a full-time mathematics teacher and subsequently head of the Mathematics Department. She and her first husband were divorced in 1992, and shortly thereafter she moved to Albuquerque and began teaching mathematics at Albuquerque Academy. She continued to teach at the Academy until her retirement in 2006. She married James Romero in 1998, and they settled permanently in Placitas. She was an uncompromising, passionate, and thoroughly professional teacher whose students will remember her not only for her teaching skills but also for the elaborate and striking three-dimensional polyhedra and other geometric constructions that she and her classes created. She was an accomplished seamstress throughout her life and enjoyed all things to do with fabric; she was also an avid artist and combined these interests in a range of fabric and textile arts. She was an enthusiastic golfer, skier, ice skater, and tennis player. Her family and close friends will also remember her as a wonderful cook. She will be remembered and mourned by large communities of friends, colleagues, and former students at all the schools where she taught, in her community in Placitas, and at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, where she and Jim maintained a home and spent many summers. She died on January 12, 2011 at home in Placitas. She is survived by her husband; two children from her first marriage; three of Jim's children; and one grandchild. A memorial service for Ellie will be held on Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 3:00 p.m., at the Las Placitas Presbyterian Church in Placitas. In lieu of flowers, donations in her name can be made to one of the following organizations: PB & J Family Services (www.pbjfamilyservices.org); Haven House (http://www.havenhouseinc.org); or La Casa Rosa Food Bank at Las Placitas Presbyterian Church.
|
