Beverly Bollenback, volunteer, leader

Beverly C. Bollenback of Ridgefield, a social worker and longtime Ridgefielder who had been active in many organizations, died Saturday, Sept. 11, 2004, at Danbury Hospital. She was 74 years old and the wife of Dirk F. Bollenback.
Mrs. Bollenback was born in Stamford on April 27, 1930, daughter of Archie and Agnes Buchanan Colvin. Her family moved to Chester where she grew up and graduated from Chester High School in the Class of 1948. In 1952 she earned a bachelor of arts degree in English at the University of Connecticut and was a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority.
She met her future husband through Mr. Bollenback’s college roommate, who had grown up across the street from the Colvins in Chester. The two were married in the summer of 1953, shortly after Mr. Bollenback graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown.
Her interest in helping people had led Mrs. Bollenback to take a job with the State of Connecticut Department of Welfare. When Mr. Bollenback was working on his master’s degree at Johns Hopkins, she served as a social worker in the District of Columbia, and when her husband was an instructor in the Army at Fort Bragg, N.C., she spent two years as a state social worker there.
When Mr. Bollenback took a job as a teacher at Ridgefield High School 46 years ago, the Bollenbacks came to town, at first living in an apartment on West Lane.
Shortly after moving here, Mrs. Bollenback began being active in community work. She was a member of the League of Women Voters by 1959, and as voter service chairman in 1960, established the Ridgefield High School “mock election” program in which ninth graders met with candidates each fall, and then voted on their choices. The program is still in use today at the high school, although since 1995, it has been aimed at seniors instead of freshmen.
For many years Mrs. Bollenback had been a member of the Board of Directors of the Visiting Nurse Association of Ridgefield, and in 1989 was elected the VNA’s president. She served two terms.
In the 1970s, she was one of the founders of Meals on Wheels, and helped screen volunteers for the service.
Mrs. Bollenback was also a former secretary of the Republican Town Committee on which she served for eight years. She was chairman and served as a member of the Altar Guild of St. Stephen’s Church for many years.
For more than 25 years, Mrs. Bollenback worked at the Cortina Shop on Main Street.
Mrs. Bollenback’s interests included 18th and 19th Century country furniture. “She took a great interest and pride in Early American funeriture — our house has always been reflective of her tastes,” Mr. Bollenback said.
“She was an avid reader,” her husband said, adding that she also enjoyed crossword puzzles — “she was always a lot quicker than I was.”
Mrs. Bollenback loved animals, and the couple had always had a dog or a cat. The latest is Laddie, a collie.
Besides her husband of 51 years, Mrs. Bollenback is survived by a daughter, Ann Jamison and her husband Thomas of Fairfield; a grandson, Connor Jamison; and a sister, Melissa Clark and her husband, Donald, of Centreville, Del.
A daughter, Sarah Bollenback, died in 1989.
Services will take place on Friday, Sept. 17, at 11 a.m. in St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. The family will receive friends in North Hall of St. Stephen's Church after the funeral.
Interment will be private.
There will be no calling hours.
In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that donations in her memory be made to the Visiting Nurse Association of Ridgefield, 90 East Ridge, Ridgefield, CT 06877.
The Kane Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.