Renée graduated from Cornell University, class of 1946, with a BS degree in Home Economics, having attained a pilot license in her free time. She met her husband Stanford A. Wallace of Detroit Michigan on a blind date in Shaker Heights Ohio. They were married in Detroit in October of 1948. Their married life began in Detroit , with brief stints in Washington DC and Roslyn Long Island New York, before settling down in Houston Texas in 1968.
Renée had a long and distinguished career as a visionary leader in the field of intellectual developmental disabilities. Early in her career, she consulted with the state of New York on diet and nutrition in their residential state institutions. She designed innovative adaptive furniture to make it easier for handicapped residents to eat, thus preventing mortality from respirational aspiration. She was the Director of the Cullen Residential Center in Harris County. In collaboration with her husband, and when she was sixty years old, Renée founded VITALIVING INC, a community-based residence program for adults with intellectual disabilities, which just celebrated its 40th year. Today VLC is an 8 million dollar agency with 135 employees serving 490 individuals. Renée wrote a memoir about their efforts to bring this organization into existence called Creative Caring; the Vital-Living story, published in 2009 and available for purchase on Amazon.
Renée was preceded in death by her loving husband Stan and her parents Samuel and Edna Gaines. She is survived by her 4 children, Melanie (Andre), Lee, Ricky, and Andrew (Jessica), Grandchildren Robin Greene(Robert), Samantha Martin (TJ), Matthew Hobson, Ashton Lippert and great grandchild Benjamin Greene. Her final days were lovingly spent at the home of her daughter in Newton Mass. in the care of the Hospice of Good Shepherd with personal attendants Winnie Channer, Sonia Oliviera, Anna Harewood, Maria Santos, and Edalyne Polinyce.
Funeral services will be at 11 AM, Thursday, April 25, 2024 in the Bender Memorial Chapel of Beth Yeshurun at Post Oak, 7445 Awty School Lane Houston, TX 77055, Rabbi Deborah, officiating.
For those desiring, memorial contributions can be made in Renée's memory to VITALIVING.
