Beverly Ann Lemmond

She was the second daughter of Florence Catherine (née Scragg) and Karl Adolph Simson, born December 11, 1927, on Staten Island, New York. The family soon moved to Larchmont, New York; Beverly attended school in Mamaroneck. She graduated from the all-female Wilson College, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where she majored in Physics. Beverly got a job at General Electric in Schenectady, New York, where she performed mathematical calculations a la the “calculators” in the movie, Hidden Figures.

Some years later she noticed a “quite eligible” electrical engineer and began timing her coffee breaks to his. She and Charles Lemmond married in 1958. Beverly quit her job, and she and Charlie started a family at St. Stephens Lane, Scotia. There, Beverly discovered a life-long love for gardening. She worked in the yard whenever she could, intermittently wiping her brow with a bandanna otherwise peeking out from her workpants pocket. At St. Stephens, she created paths in narrow woods for her kids to run through, and in retirement, a beautiful patio seating area surrounded by plants where she and Charlie would have their coffee in the morning or a glass of wine in the evening. At their camp on Galway Lake, Beverly labored to terrace the hill and dragged rocks up from the shoreline to build raised gardens. She volunteered her gardening expertise to the Burnt Hills United Methodist Church for decades, helping with the overall landscaping but mostly the large garden between the two front entrances.

In her 80s, when she and Charlie moved to a ranch house, she created gorgeous gardens from scratch. Nature was elemental to her: she was fascinated by the daily change of buds changing to leaves in the spring and seeds sprouting in the ground. But gardening was not her only interest. The nature-lover also loved to swim. The scientist was fascinated by the precision of the universe. She could become consumed by opera. She was never without a stack of books from the library to read, fiction and nonfiction.

Beverly always handled the finances for her household, enjoying calculating how various investment values changed day to day, all in her precise pencil handwriting. She very reluctantly gave over the responsibility only a few months ago, protesting that she’d always handled her bills. She adored her cocker spaniel dogs and grand dogs. Their unremitted happiness gave her happiness. In retirement, Beverly and Charlie traveled vastly, including to Africa, Switzerland, and Alaska, often signing up with other couples from their church on the same trip. To gardening, reading and reviewing the finances, Beverly added volunteering at the local library and, for many summers, volunteering with Charlie as an usher at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center orchestral performances and at Proctor’s Theater.

After Charlie died in 2013, Beverly moved to Portland, Oregon, minutes from her son’s family. She enjoyed watching her grandson grow up and her granddaughter marry. She insisted on living in her own apartment at a retirement home. She revitalized the Home’s Conservatory, once more getting to check on her flowers’ progress day to day, did puzzles, and became very competitive in bean bag toss. Beverly was quite proud this last month of the confession of one of her aides that her chart described her as “fiercely independent.”

Beverly is survived by her children, Jeanne of Pittsfield, MA, Ted (Julie) of Portland, OR, and Martha (Joe) Lemmond of Williamstown, NJ; grandchildren Jennifer Nailos, Stephanie Rappa (Nick), Christopher Nailos (Brittany), Elizabeth Dam (David), and Matthew Lemmond; great-grandchildren Leighton and Greyson Rappa, Emmett and Lily Nailos, and Gabriel Dam; and her sister, Flossie Kelly of Norwalk, CT. No services being held; the family is having a private dinner only.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.skylinememorialgardens.com for the Lemmond family.