Mystic – Elizabeth (Liz) Glasfeld, 93, died peacefully Saturday, December 23, 2023. She was preceded in death by her husband of 56 years, Rolf, and is survived by her five children, Arthur, Michael, Emily, Elizabeth and Andrew, and her five grandchildren.
Liz was born on September 30, 1930 in Akron, Ohio to Newell and Harriet Hamilton, and grew up in Patterson Heights, Pennsylvania with her brother, Everett, and with cousin George Stansbury as a close companion. She later attended high school at Linden Hall in Lititz, PA and then attended Connecticut College, where she studied history and theater, which would be her two great interests in life.
Following graduation, Liz and her close friend, Libby Myers (later Itse) headed west on an adventure that unexpectedly landed them in San Francisco for two years, where Liz found a job in costume design that allowed her to become actively involved in the local theater community. In 1954, Liz and Libby found a chance to go on a second adventure that took them through the Panama Canal and ultimately to Europe before a return to Pennsylvania convinced Liz she needed a more stable career. With that in mind, she attended library school at Carnegie Institute of Technology and promptly launched another adventure as a librarian working for the US Army in Bavaria. In 1958 she returned to the Bay Area, working at the Bancroft Library at the University of California in Berkeley, and subsequently met and married Rolf, a graduate student at the time.
Over the next few years they quickly generated an unwieldy family of five kids and moved east to Cohasset, Massachusetts when Rolf got a job with the Fore River shipyard in Quincy. As the children grew Liz returned to library work, first as a volunteer and then as school librarian. When the Quincy Shipyard closed in 1986, Liz and Rolf moved to Mystic, CT to continue Rolf’s career at Electric Boat, and Liz started work at the Mystic Seaport as a docent, uniting again her love of history and theater, until retiring in 2002.
In retirement, Liz and Rolf enjoyed a wide range of travel, with memorable trips rafting and kayaking in rugged parts of the world. They had a surprising love of Death Valley and returned there many times. Liz returned to costume design of a particular sort and knit dozens of beanies for newborns at the Backus hospital in Norwich. Following Rolf’s death in 2017, Liz remained active thanks to the support of daughter Emily, and was able to visit family across the country and in England, and was also able to enjoy lovely views while home in Mystic.
Services will be private. In lieu of flowers, donations in Liz’s memory may be made to the Mystic & Noank Library.