Georgia J. Bronson

Georgia Jeane ‘Bill’ Connelly Bronson, passed away June 5, 2011 at the age of 93 at Canterbury Hall in Canterbury, NH. She lived most of her life at 34 Wheelock Street in Keene, NH for nearly 50 years, and on Blossom Street, Keene, for many years prior to that. She moved to Canterbury Hall in 2002.

She was born in Plainville, Kansas on March 4, 1918, the daughter of Emma and George Connelly. She attended Plainville High School and graduated in 1936 as the Salutatorian of her class.

She married her high school sweetheart, Loren Fenton Bronson, of Stockton, Kansas on April 20, 1938 in Stockton, and they celebrated 60 years of marriage shortly before Mr. Bronson passed away. They lived in Kansas and Texas a few years while Mr. Bronson was serving in the U.S Army Air Corps during WW II through the mid-1940s.

After the war the couple followed Georgia’s sister, Mrs. Dorothy Drew and her husband Harold, to Keene, where the Bronsons settled down to raise a family.

She was very proud of performing in the Keene Women’s Club Theater during the 1940s, earning high praise for her portrayal as the lead character in the play, ‘Claudia’, in 1946. In 1965 Georgia starred in the role of ‘Grandma’, at the age of 47, in a one-act play entitled “The Neighbors.” The comedy was presented by The Women’s Fellowship of the United Church of Christ (now the First Congregational Church) of which she was a church member. More than 100 people crowded into the church’s Parish House to see the comedy. She received a standing ovation and much praise for her starring role.

“Bill’ was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She loved to read and write, but her passion was cooking for her family, either Kansas-style or New England. She was ‘famous’ in the family for her signature chocolate fudge. She was a homemaker who was active in the Symonds School P.T.A. and served several times as a ‘Room Mother’ while her children were growing up attending the school. She enjoyed her many years in the sixties as a Den Mother for the Symonds School Cub Scout Troop.

Survivors include two daughters and a son: (Lorna) Leigh (Bronson) Sharps and her husband, Steven, of Ashland, N.H., Lou Ann Bronson of Concord, N.H., and Lon Drew Bronson and his wife, JoAnn, of Las Vegas, NV. She was a grandmother to nine and great-grandmother to five. Also surviving are three nephews: Mike Sullivan of Marlborough, N.H., Dan Bronson of Studio City, CA, and Ralph Bronson of Las Vegas, NV, and one niece, Lynn Sullivan of San Francisco, CA; several grand-nephews and grand-nieces. She was predeceased by a son, Dr. Loren Connelly Bronson in 1981, and her husband Loren Fenton Bronson, in 1998; also by her sister Dorothy and brother-in-law Harold ‘Sid’ Drew, and a sister, Margie and her husband Robert Sullivan all of Keene.

A private family service was held graveside at the Monadnock View Cemetery in West Keene where she was laid to rest between her beloved husband and son.

Foley Funeral Home, 49 Court Street, Keene, NH is assisting the family with the arrangements.