Obituary of Madeleine Uhler Lake

Madeleine Uhler Lake “Mad”, 89, of Selah Farm, Pomfret, CT, died at home on March 12, 2015. She was born at home on December 23, 1925 in Brooklyn, New York, to John Martin Uhler II and Alice Amelia (Nelson) Uhler of that city. She is predeceased by her husband John Marshall Lake, her parents, her brother John III, and her granddaughter Emily Southworth Church. Mad is survived by her sister, Alice (Betty) Hale of Pomfret, with whom she made her home during the last year of her life; by three children, Nina Lake of Albany, Peter Lake (Judith) of Newtown Square PA, and Lois Lake Church (Allan) of Meriden CT; by seven grandchildren (Nathaniel and Josiah Raabe, Joshua, Stephen and Daniel Lake, and Juliane and Victoria Church); and by 11 great-grandchildren, as well as three nieces and two nephews, including Laurence N. Hale of Pomfret Center. Mad graduated from Erasmus Hall High School in 1944, and attended Syracuse University. She married her high school sweetheart John on New Year’s Day, 1947, and the couple lived a full and happy married life together, making their home in Montpelier, VT, Littleton and Concord NH, Skaneateles and Syracuse, NY and Old Greenwich and Greenwich, CT until John’s death in 2007. Mad spent an active and involved life as wife, mother, and friend, attending Christ Episcopal Church during her Greenwich years. Along with family, swimming was her life’s focus. In her thirties, she participated in the “50-mile Swim-Across” program that participants completed in quarter-mile units. Mad rarely swam less than a mile each evening after a full day of homemaking, and became the first person in Onondaga County, NY, to swim the fifty miles. Mad worked as a swimming instructor for more than half a century. She was the first female Aquatics Director at the Jewish Community Center in Syracuse, and taught swimming for the Onondaga County American Red Cross with her daughter Lois, and at the YWCA and YMCA in Greenwich. She later became the YM’s Aquatics Director. Mad spent 41 summers teaching water safety to generations of youngsters at the Riverside Yacht Club. A service celebrating Mad’s life will take place in at Christ Church, Pomfret, on Saturday, March 28 at noon. In lieu of flowers, donations in memory of Madeleine Lake may be sent to the Lake Pool Fund at the Regional Community YMCA in Putnam, P.O. Box 188, Putnam, CT 06260. To share a memory, visit smithandwalkerfh.com.