Audrey Newell

March 1, 1926 - July 9, 2021

Audrey Newell, a longtime resident of Lake Pleasant, died Friday, July 9, 2021 in Carthage Center nursing home in Carthage, NY, where she had been since March. She was born Audrey Grace Schwarz in 1926 in Valley Stream, NY, to Leonard and Josephine Schwarz. She married Richard Newell, her high school sweetheart, in 1951, and they were married for 69 years until Richard died on December 27, 2020. She is survived by her son Peter Newell of Lake Pleasant NY, and her daughter Wendy Newell of Lake Pleasant and Watertown, NY. Mom had a long battle with severe dementia, but we are thankful that during her last months at Carthage Center she seemed peaceful and contented. Our family began spending summer holidays in Lake Pleasant in the early 1960s at Roads End Cottages on Sacandaga Lake. After a few summers of renting a cottage for a week or two, the family began staying at Roads End for the entire summer. Audrey and the kids would come as soon as school let out and stay until the end of summer, usually going back just in time for us to go back to school. Dad would spend his week or two of vacation with us and then commute back and forth from Long Island on the weekends. Mom and Dad and us kids made many local friends at that time. Mom loved to swim and go for walks in the woods, and she and us kids were always walking to Fawn Lake or going berry picking or on the beach. She and her friends also loved going for long drives antiquing. We moved up permanently in 1971. Mom worked for a while in a family business, but her family was most important to her, and she was also very active in the local community. She loved to read, and was instrumental in the founding of the current Lake Pleasant library and was an active member of the Friends of the Library. She was in the Warren-Hamilton County Home Bureau, the Twigs, and for a while volunteered for the garden group at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake. She made baskets. Our house always had every craft supply we could ever need, and boxes full of unfinished craft projects. She loved birds and plants of all sorts. When we went on walks, she would stop every few feet and go off the trail to look at a plant or a bird. But her biggest love besides her family was flowers. Wild flowers or garden flowers, they were all equal and she loved them all. She was an avid gardener but her garden was never formal; there were just flowers wherever she could fit them. Wendy was her garden helper most of the time, but she would rope whoever was available into digging holes for plants (and pulling out the inevitable rock that was always wherever she wanted the plant to be.) She made beautiful bouquets for our table, and for the tables at Dad’s Lions Club breakfasts and other events. Even at the end of her life, when her dementia was severe, she could recognize the flowers and loved having fresh flowers in her room. There will be no funeral. A memorial service will be planned later in the year. Mom’s wish that was that those who wished to commemorate her life would donate to the Lake Pleasant Public Library, PO Box 799 , Speculator, NY 12164, the Speculator Volunteer Ambulance Corps PO Box 282 Speculator, NY 12164, or the Lake Pleasant Volunteer Fire Department PO Box 545 Lake Pleasant, NY 12108 in her name. And if you know someone who loves flowers, please give them some, in memory of Audrey Newell. Arrangements are under the direction and care of the Northville Funeral Home. Condolences may be made to the family online at www.northvillefuneralservice.com.