Woodstock, Vt. —
Sarah Ellen “SE” Dembinski passed away the morning of Monday, Oct. 8, 2018, at the Jack Byrnes Hospice in Lebanon, N.H. She was born in Waterbury, Conn., the only child of Ralph Seery Hayes and Marion Daly Hayes. Her husband, Jan A. Dembinski predeceased her in 2004. He had been President of M.J. Daly & Sons, Inc., the mechanical contracting company founded in Waterbury in 1882 by SE’s great grandfather.
SE, also known as “Rusty,” was the mother of four boys and an adventurer all her life. She loved to fish the rivers of New England and Florida, sail and swim Long Island Sound and the waters around Cape Cod, ski the Green Mountains, and, most of all, to be with friends and family. She’d traveled around the world as a young woman, and never lost her love of travel and exploration. It was a joy she shared with her family. As a young mother, she would bundle her brood into her station wagon and be off to the Bronx Zoo, the World’s Fair, Montreal Expo, and every place worth visiting in between. Later in life she accompanied each of her grandchildren on a grand adventure. She explored China with Katie and Marcus, sailed the Baltic with Helen and the Danube with Maggie; toured Australia with her granddaughter Leah, and shepherded Eric, Helen and T.J. to Poland to a Dembinski Family reunion. She had the singular joy of holding her great-grandson, Rowan, in her arms this summer.
Two of her sons predeceased her – Thaddeus and Paul – but she bore those losses with quiet grace and dignity, informed by her deep Catholic faith. She was a “Sacred Heart girl” all her life, having graduated from Noroton and Manhattenville. She is survived by her sons Thomas (Anne) of Hamden, Conn. and Jan (Jennifer) of Woodstock.
A memorial mass for Sarah Ellen will be held at Our Lady of the Snows in Woodstock on Saturday, Oct. 20, 2018, at 11 a.m.
An online guestbook can be found at cabotfh.com.