This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.

09/21/2017 12:00 AM


Guilford

Constance Powell Landry Cosgrove, a longtime resident of Guilford, died on Sept. 13 at the Connecticut Hospice in Branford. She was 92.

Born Jan. 17, 1925, in Hartford, Connie was the second of five children born to Frances Landry (née LeBaron Davis) and Arthur B. Landry, a physician and one-time president of the State Medical Society.

Connie attended Hartford’s St. Joseph Catholic School through the 8th grade. After graduating from Hartford Public High, she attended Smith College and graduated with a BA in history in 1946. She went on to earn a master of social work degree from Simmons College.

In 1954, Connie married Edward J. “Ned” Cosgrove, a decorated WWII veteran (U.S. Army Air Corps Staff Sgt., Wesleyan University BA, University of Connecticut MBA) whom she had known since their elementary school days. Shortly after they wed, she and Ned moved to Guilford, then a quiet shoreline town of just 5,000 people.

Connie put her social work skills to good use. She spent many years managing the Hole in the Wall, a nonprofit consignment shop in Guilford. To this day the Hole in the Wall supports the town’s ABC (A Better Chance) program, which helps academically talented young women of color from under-represented communities attend high school in Guilford.

A breast cancer survivor, Connie loved reading (her all-time favorite book, Little Women); corresponding with family and friends; and attending opera performances with Ned and, after Ned passed away, watching simulcasts from the Met with friends.

A lifelong Catholic (she identified with the church as embodied by activists like the Berrigan brothers and the civil disobedience of the Plowshares movement), Connie is survived by her son Sean in Guilford (wife Georgia Mook Cosgrove); son Edward Joseph, Jr., (Jay) in Fairfield (Sheila Dravis-Cosgrove); son Anthony in Guilford; daughter Mary in Mill Valley, California, (Jay Gustafson); son Benedict in Brooklyn, New York, (Myung Jin Lee); and son Joseph in Stone Ridge, New York, (Anne Graziano). She is also survived by eight grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; a younger brother, Arthur Landry, Jr., of Old Lyme; and many nieces, nephews, and friends. Ned, her husband of 52 years, died in September 2006. Her sisters Marguerite (Midge) Bonee and Priscilla Foster, and her brother John Landry, predeceased her.

A service will be held on Sept. 30 at 11 a.m. at St. George Church in Guilford. In lieu of flowers, mourners are urged to consider donating to the Guilford ABC program (guilfordabc.org); the Connecticut Hospice (hospice.com); or an antipoverty charity that Ned and Connie long supported, Heifer International (heifer.org).