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Pamela Mary (Padma) Firk was born on March 20, 1932, in the small town of Oulton Broad, Suffolk, England, a unique area of East Anglia, known for boating, outdoor activities, and ready access to the North Sea. She died peacefully at the St. Raphael Campus of Yale-New Haven Hospital on Feb. 4 after bravely enduring many years of pain. She was the second daughter of Edward and Ellen Brown. Her dear sister Maureen (Peggy), who died in 2010, remained close to her for seven decades.

On Sept. 11, 1952, she married Frank William Kenneth Firk; they had been high school sweethearts. She was devoted to their three sons, John, Peter, and Andrew, all born in England before the family came to live in Hamden when Frank became a member of the Physics Department at Yale University in 1965.

Pamela’s early life was completely disrupted during World War II when she was evacuated from the dangerous east coast of England, having narrowly escaped being shot when a German aircraft machine-gunned the street where she was walking. She then lived in the Midlands, where she attended numerous schools during her formative years. In spite of the turmoil, she excelled at school, and immediately after the war, when a student at the Coborn School for Girls (founded in 1701), an outstanding school in the East End of London, she matriculated at the University of London at the age of sixteen.

She had intended to become a doctor but her academic potential was not appreciated by her family and teachers, and therefore she left school at 17. She was appointed a laboratory assistant in the Department of Physics at Kings College, London. Her salary was totally inadequate, and she left to become a laboratory assistant in an industrial chemistry laboratory. She remained there until her marriage to Frank, at which time she moved to Berkshire. Frank had been appointed to a position at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, Berkshire. During her first year of marriage, she was appointed a scientific assistant at Harwell where she was involved in measuring the distribution of the neutron flux in an advanced experimental nuclear reactor.

In 1954, she left her work at Harwell to have her first child, John. She devoted the next 20 years to her family, caring for her three sons and for her husband, who moved through the ranks of government science in England and in academia at Yale. Frank was thereby able to continue his higher education, and research in nuclear physics, knowing that he was cared for in a loving home. She found time to volunteer as a trained nurse in the Saint John’s Ambulance Brigade in the Oxford district of England.

In 1960, she accompanied Frank to Oak Ridge in Tennessee, where he spent one year as a member of the Physics Division at the National Laboratory. They toured the United States and marveled at the magnificent vistas, from the Craters of the Moon in Idaho, to Big Bend on the Rio Grande.

Pamela had become interested in yoga in the 1950s; in 1981, she enrolled as a student at the Satchidananda Ashram, at the time in North East Connecticut and, after rigorous training, she became a qualified teacher of Integral Yoga. She taught classes at the Yale Health Center, and to citizens of Hamden. In 1982, Frank was appointed the master of Trumbull College at Yale, and for the next five years, Pamela devoted her time and energy to hundreds of Yale students, and to the fellows and staff of the college. Her caring and compassion were there for all to see. She was appointed a Fellow for Life of Trumbull College.

In 1984, she went on a pilgrimage with her guru to India, and arrived in New Delhi on the day that Indira Gandhi was assassinated. She was at home in India and returned with precious memories of the people she had met, and the spectacular temples that she had visited in Southern India.

In 1987, she and Frank moved to Guilford. She soon became involved in teaching yoga to the senior citizens of the town. Pamela had a faithful following, and introduced her students to her innovative program called Gentle Yoga. She continued teaching for ten years, at which point she became immobilized with a chronic back problem. Unfortunately, the surgery that she had was not successful, and after 2002, she was never free from pain; she was unable to travel, even for short distances.

In the mid-1990s, she was an active member of SUUS in Madison, taking part in the choir, and in plays that the Society produced. For many years, she was a volunteer at the Branford Hospice, caring for terminally ill patients. During her later years, she became a Sudoku expert, an avid reader of the news, and she took a great interest in US and global politics. She was a member of the New Haven Mineral Club for forty years, and always got pleasure from her magnificent collection of minerals; many of them she had collected herself or with her son, Andy, also a keen rockhound. She was an expert in the field of the micromounting of crystals.

She is survived by her husband of 64 years, Frank; their three sons, John, Peter, and Andrew; a grandson, Ian, and his mother Vicki; and her daughter-in-law Gloria Cheung and her family.

Funeral arrangements will be private.

Om shanti.