Family, friends and quilting brought joy to Elaine Connelly’s life. Now we are left mourning our much loved wife, mother, grandmother, friend and fellow quilter.
Elaine was born on Veterans’ Day, the 11th of November 1945, in Mid Valley Hospital in Dickson City, Pennsylvania. Fate and a lack of housing at her first choice of the University of Pennsylvania led her to Northwestern University, where she met the love of her life, George Connelly. A history graduate, she worked as a programmer and systems analyst for Sears Roebuck in Chicago where she was a female pioneer in information technology, which was then known as “data processing.” Later, after George graduated from law school, they moved to Buffalo New York, where she used those same skills at M&T Bank and later when they moved to Houston at Amoco (now BP), where she was the maestro of the intranet, the nascent internal electronic communication program.
More than her work outside her home, she was the kind of woman who weaves order and softness into the fabric of family and community. She was the sort of woman who everyone wishes to have as a mother. At various times, Elaine was the president of her children’s pre-school, team mom for soccer teams, score keeper for Little League and the treasurer of her Riverbend homeowners association.
She also was the president of the Quilt Guild of Greater Houston, which brings us to her other, great passion: quilting. Her talent for organization, which served her so well in technology, also led her to create the beautiful patterns of colors and shapes that graced her quilts. One of her first quilts won the New Quilter’s Prize at the American International Quilt Festival. But if you called her a “major league quilter,” she would deny it and add that she worked with an even higher level of world class quilters.
Her greatest love of quilting was working with fabric to create gifts for others. Ninety percent of the quilts she made were gifts. Many a baby has nestled in a quilt lovingly crafted by Elaine. One now is holding the baby of one of those babies. She also shared her joy in quilting by demonstrating quilting techniques at the Learn-to-Quilt booth at the International Quilt Festival. Elaine has led teams of quilters who sewed quilts to raise funds for Ronald McDonald house. Two of those quilts were auctioned for the highest sums ever paid.
Elaine was the second child of Joseph and Mary Tylenda. She recently lost her older sister, Mary Louise Geupel, and is survived by her sister, Dr. Carolyn Tylenda and brother Joseph Tylenda. In addition to George, she leaves behind daughter, Allison and her husband, Chad, and son, Devin and his wife, Dr. Melinda Wilhelm Connelly. Her beloved grandchildren are Emma, Carter, Nicholas, Gabriel and Chelsea.
Friends are cordially invited to a visitation with the family from five o’clock in the afternoon until eight o’clock in the evening on Wednesday, the 16th of April, in the Jasek Chapel of Geo. H. Lewis & Sons, 1010 Bering Drive in Houston.
The funeral service is to be conducted at ten o’clock in the morning on Thursday, the 17th of April, in the Jasek Chapel of Geo. H. Lewis & Sons.
Immediately following, all are invited to greet the family during a reception in the adjacent grand foyer.
In lieu of customary remembrances, contributions in Elaine’s memory may be directed to the Houston Center for Contemporary Crafts, 4848 Main Street, Houston, TX 77002.
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