HIGHLANDS RANCH, CO — Gerry Scherman Day died October 14, 2019 after a two-year battle with cancer. She was 91.
Born to Henri Ganteaume and his wife Sydney (nee Dowsley) December 23, 1927 in Newtonville MA, she attended Walnut Hill School and Erskine Junior College before moving to Boston and then New York, where she worked for the Bureau of Analysis and Research in the late 1950s.
In 1961, she married William H. Scherman of New York City, Dartmouth class of ‘34, and moved with him to Pelham New York, where her sons Daniel and Timothy were born. For some years, she also raised Mr. Scherman’s youngest son David, from his previous marriage. In Pelham, the couple was active in the Huguenot Church, Pelham Country Club and with Dartmouth alumni events. Summering on Cape Cod, she applied herself to painting landscapes and miniatures and developed her talent in succeeding decades.
In 1974, the family relocated to rural Bernardsville, NJ. As editor of the Garden Club’s annual cookbook back in Pelham, here she expanded her interest from cut flowers to organic vegetable gardening, the produce of which supplied her regular dinner parties. She served as deacon at the Presbyterian Church in Basking Ridge, and was active in book and bridge clubs.
Gerry and her husband moved to Orleans, Cape Cod in 1981, joining many friends who had retired there. After several grey, wet winters, however, they chose Hanover, NH and her husband’s alma mater as their next home-or homes. An inveterate re-decorator, she moved four times in Hanover in the 1990s, each time experimenting with fusions of French provincial and New English styles.
When her husband died in 1998, Gerry continued his work as the ‘34 class newsletter editor for some time. The following year Gerry married her husband’s Dartmouth classmate, Dr. Emerson Day, and relocated to Wilmette IL. She continued to enjoy travel, with destinations as far as Alaska.
Gerry was widowed a second time in 2009 and moved to Highlands Ranch, CO. At the age of 84 she completed her first novel, Truth and Deceit, based in large part on her personal growth as a single woman in Boston and New York. A prequel, Past Imperfect, followed in 2017, fictionalizing some of the lives of her 18th century French relatives in Martinique and Trinidad.
She leaves behind two sons, Daniel and Timothy Scherman, her daughters-in-law Debby Scherman and
Pamela Davidson, and six grandchildren.