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Brenda Balze Feleppa passed away peacefully at home on Oct. 4, surrounded by her loving family. She was 86. Brenny, as everyone knew her, was born Aug. 2, 1932, in Englewood, New Jersey, and raised in nearby Leonia. She graduated from Pembroke College in Brown University in 1953, along with her soon-to-be husband, Edward E. Feleppa, Jr. The four years at Pembroke were among her most cherished. The newlyweds lived for a short while in San Antonio, Texas, where Ed was stationed in the Army, then moved back east to Pines Lake, New Jersey. In that idyllic lakeside community, they soon had three daughters, Cathy, Sue, and Stacy. Brenny was predeceased by her sister Edna; her father Dr. Henry Balze, Sr.; her brother Henry; and her mother Brenda McFatridge Balze.

Throughout her adult life, she recalled fond memories of childhood summers spent at “The Dike,” her grandfather Howard’s farm near Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Growing up in Leonia, she made lifelong friends, with whom she’d sneak off and listen to 45s on her portable record player. Hardly frivolous, though, Brenny often told of skipping third grade, taking four years of Latin at Leonia High, and going away to an Ivy League college at the tender age of 17.

In 1987 — with all three daughters married and starting careers and families of their own — Brenny and Ed moved to East Hampton, New York, where they built their dream house on Gardiners Bay. It became a welcoming haven for friends, the girls and their husbands Bob, Frank, and Bill, and a growing gaggle of grandchildren: Alex, Ted, Max, Emma, Grace, Olivia, and Laney.

In 1992, they relocated to Guilford and quickly made another core group of great friends. Ultimately, they settled in Madison. Brenny involved herself in several local organizations, most notably the Leete’s Island Garden Club—she served as president from 2008 to 2010—and the Hole in the Wall consignment shop in downtown Guilford, which supports the town’s A Better Chance program.

After Ed’s death in October 2007, she remained active. Gram, as the grandkids she doted on called her, was a model of volunteer service. The four great grandchildren—Alex and Ryan McKeefrey’s sons Finn, Callum, Henry, and Jack—she was lucky to have known in her later years, and those to follow will grow up hearing about how loving, caring, generous, and kind their “GG” was with so many people during her long, remarkable, and rewarding life.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that friends let those closest to them know how much they love and care about one another—a sentiment Brenny espoused until the moment she passed. That would make her very happy.

Friends are invited to a memorial service at Christ Episcopal Church, 11 Park St., Guilford on Oct. 13 at 2 p.m. Burial will be held privately. Arrangements in the care of the Guilford Funeral Home, 115 Church St., Guilford. For more information or to send an online condolence for the family, please visit www.GuilfordFuneralHome.com.