Jill Strawn New Haven, Connecticut Obituary

Jill Strawn

Jill Meredith Strawn was born on July 22, 1946 in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. She was the third of Jack and Ginny Berlenbach’s four children, and their only daughter. By all accounts she was a model child, except for her strange penchant for jumping off garages and setting small fires. When she was a preteen, Jill’s family moved to Long Island, where she graduated from Hicksville High School. She then moved to “the City” and enrolled at the St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing. There she discovered her life’s passion – the healing arts. St. Luke’s was a prime example of what used to be called “diploma schools,” hospital-based institutions that readied young women (and the occasional young man) for the nursing profession and for adulthood. Throughout her life, Jill was a fierce defender of diploma schools in general, and of St. Luke’s in particular, even (and especially) as the task of training nurses became the province of colleges and universities. After receiving her diploma in 1967, Jill worked as a “med/surg” nurse in the City, and engaged in private duty nursing to supplement her income, all the while enjoying the good life on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. When her mind grew restless, she enrolled at Hunter College, graduating in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in Urban Affairs. During her Upper West Side years, Jill married for the first time, and transitioned from Jill Berlenbach to Jill Catapano. In 1974, she enrolled at Yale School of Nursing, and discovered a passion within a passion – psychiatric/mental health nursing. Three years later she graduated with a Master’s degree, and moved to Philadelphia to take up a clinical nursing position at Jefferson Hospital. At the time, Jefferson was a hotbed of holistic theory and practice. While there, Jill was exposed to a wide range of what were then called “alternative” therapies. She studied and practiced hypnotherapy, became a student of Therapeutic Touch with Delores Krieger, and developed a lifelong interest in and commitment to complementary medicine. In 1981, Jill returned to New Haven to join the Yale School of Nursing faculty, with joint appointments in the Department of Psychiatry and at Yale New Haven Hospital. No longer married, and no longer the person she had been as a child, Jill shed both her married and birth names, and adopted her mother’s birth name “Strawn”. Before long, Jill began combining her academic interests with political activism. In 1983 Yale New Haven Hospital began seeing for the first time patients with strange infections and opportunistic diseases. They were young men, mostly, and very few survived. At first the collection of diseases did not have a name, but eventually they came to be known as acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS. To combat the fear and stigma associated with this new syndrome, Jill collaborated with a small band of caregivers and community activists to create a network of volunteers willing to provide support to the gay men (mostly, it being the early stages of the epidemic) who were infected with the disease, and to provide safer sex education in as many settings as possible. This network morphed into AIDS Project New Haven, one of the first community-based AIDS support organizations anywhere outside of a major metropolitan area. Jill helped to establish its many component parts, including a hotline and a buddy support network, and she served, early on, as APNH’S co-chair. Jill left her position at the Yale School of Nursing in 1985, and became even more deeply engaged in community-based activism. She co-founded the Connecticut AIDS Residence Program, which provided confidential supportive housing for people living with HIV/AIDS, and which in recent years has blossomed into Liberty Community Services. In 1986, at the behest of New Haven’s Health Department, Jill set up the first anonymous HIV testing program in Connecticut. The pre- and post-test counseling protocols that she crafted became a model resource for health departments everywhere. Jill’s activism was not limited to the public health arena. In the mid-1980’s she was an avid supporter of Yale’s clerical and technical workers who were pursuing the right to unionize, and faced strong opposition from the University’s administration. It was through organizing a faculty group to support the budding union that she met her second husband, Harlon Dalton, or as she preferred to refer to him, her “last” husband. He was a professor at Yale Law School at the time, and later became an Episcopal priest. They proudly described themselves as a “union couple” even though neither of them belonged to an actual organized labor affiliate. In 1991, Jill was hired by Hill Health Center to create and manage an HIV/AIDS mental health program. This entailed developing a user-friendly intake process, hiring, training, and supervising case managers, and providing psychiatric care to people in acute distress. While working at Hill Health Center, Jill attended Teachers College at Columbia University, where she engaged in qualitative research designed to illuminate why people living with HIV/AIDS often were unwilling to reveal their illness to their families or to their social networks. Jill converted her research into a dissertation, and in 1997 was awarded a doctorate in nursing education (Ed. D.). That same year Jill began teaching at the College of New Rochelle, attracted to its concentration in holistic nursing. While at CNR, she struck up a friendship with the college’s master gardener. This led her to think about the intersection between his work and hers. Soon she was teaching a class called “The Garden as Healer.” And soon after that she began working on a website called “Tending Nightingale’s Garden”. It houses a collection of meditations for nurses written by Jill, with accompanying botanical illustrations drawn by Jill. After leaving the College of New Rochelle in 2001, Jill took a long overdue break from the working world. In 2006 she plunged back in, accepting a position on the faculty of the School of Health and Human Services at Southern Connecticut State University. While at Southern, Jill’s scholarship focused on spirituality and nursing. Her teaching included electives in guided imagery, mind-body connections, and spirituality. Jill’s final teaching appointment, from 2011-2015, was at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. When asked to describe the experience, her usual answer was: “What could be better? I get to work for the Queen of Heaven!” Earlier this year, Jill’s many professional accomplishments were acknowledged by the Connecticut Nursing Association, which conferred upon her the Florence S. Wald Diamond Jubilee Award for outstanding contributions to nursing practice. After retiring in 2015, Jill engaged in a wide range of creative and life-giving pursuits. She continued to make jewelry. She continued to sing first soprano in The Connecticut Women’s Chorus, also known as Another Octave. She stepped up her gardening game, at her summer house in Matunuck, Rhode Island and at The Episcopal Church of St. Paul & St. James. Inside the church (where she worshiped for nearly 40 years), Jill continued serving as a liturgical assistant, and began providing clinical supervision and pastoral support to the parish’s pastoral care team. Jill was an amazing cook, who could turn leftovers into a gourmet meal. Her activism continued unabated, including regularly escorting Planned Parenthood patients through a gauntlet of anti-abortion protestors. Prior to her cancer diagnosis, Jill loved physical activity – hiking, biking, kayaking, and dragging her husband to the gym. In recent years one of her greatest satisfactions was serving as a “loving whisperer” at The Connecticut Hospice in Branford, sitting quietly by the bedside of people who were actively dying and, if it seemed appropriate, singing softly to them. Jill reluctantly gave up this labor of love when it became apparent that she might soon become a hospice patient herself. Jill was predeceased by her parents John and Virginia Berlenbach, and by her oldest brother Thomas Berlenbach. In addition to her husband Harlon Dalton and their dog Zeke, Jill’s survivors include her brother John Berlenbach and his wife Betty, her brother Dan Berlenbach and his wife Yumie, and a host of lovely and quirky nieces and nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, and cousins. A Celebration of Jill’s life will take place on Thursday morning at 11am in the Episcopal Church of St. Paul & St. James. Burial will be privately held. It was Jill’s request that in lieu of flowers donations be made to the charitable organization of your choice.
July 22, 1946 - December 2, 202107/22/194612/02/2021
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Jill Meredith Strawn was born on July 22, 1946 in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. She was the third of Jack and Ginny Berlenbach’s four children, and their only daughter. By all accounts she was a model child, except for her strange penchant for jumping off garages and setting small fires. When she was a preteen, Jill’s family moved to Long Island, where she graduated from Hicksville High School. She then moved to “the City” and enrolled at the St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing. There she discovered her life’s passion – the healing arts. St. Luke’s was a prime example of what used to be called “diploma schools,” hospital-based institutions that readied young women (and the occasional young man) for the nursing profession and for adulthood. Throughout her life, Jill was a fierce defender of diploma schools in general, and of St. Luke’s in particular, even (and especially) as the task of training nurses became the province of colleges and universities. After receiving her diploma in 1967, Jill worked as a “med/surg” nurse in the City, and engaged in private duty nursing to supplement her income, all the while enjoying the good life on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. When her mind grew restless, she enrolled at Hunter College, graduating in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in Urban Affairs. During her Upper West Side years, Jill married for the first time, and transitioned from Jill Berlenbach to Jill Catapano. In 1974, she enrolled at Yale School of Nursing, and discovered a passion within a passion – psychiatric/mental health nursing. Three years later she graduated with a Master’s degree, and moved to Philadelphia to take up a clinical nursing position at Jefferson Hospital. At the time, Jefferson was a hotbed of holistic theory and practice. While there, Jill was exposed to a wide range of what were then called “alternative” therapies. She studied and practiced hypnotherapy, became a student of Therapeutic Touch with Delores Krieger, and developed a lifelong interest in and commitment to complementary medicine. In 1981, Jill returned to New Haven to join the Yale School of Nursing faculty, with joint appointments in the Department of Psychiatry and at Yale New Haven Hospital. No longer married, and no longer the person she had been as a child, Jill shed both her married and birth names, and adopted her mother’s birth name “Strawn”. Before long, Jill began combining her academic interests with political activism. In 1983 Yale New Haven Hospital began seeing for the first time patients with strange infections and opportunistic diseases. They were young men, mostly, and very few survived. At first the collection of diseases did not have a name, but eventually they came to be known as acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS. To combat the fear and stigma associated with this new syndrome, Jill collaborated with a small band of caregivers and community activists to create a network of volunteers willing to provide support to the gay men (mostly, it being the early stages of the epidemic) who were infected with the disease, and to provide safer sex education in as many settings as possible. This network morphed into AIDS Project New Haven, one of the first community-based AIDS support organizations anywhere outside of a major metropolitan area. Jill helped to establish its many component parts, including a hotline and a buddy support network, and she served, early on, as APNH’S co-chair. Jill left her position at the Yale School of Nursing in 1985, and became even more deeply engaged in community-based activism. She co-founded the Connecticut AIDS Residence Program, which provided confidential supportive housing for people living with HIV/AIDS, and which in recent years has blossomed into Liberty Community Services. In 1986, at the behest of New Haven’s Health Department, Jill set up the first anonymous HIV testing program in Connecticut. The pre- and post-test counseling protocols that she crafted became a model resource for health departments everywhere. Jill’s activism was not limited to the public health arena. In the mid-1980’s she was an avid supporter of Yale’s clerical and technical workers who were pursuing the right to unionize, and faced strong opposition from the University’s administration. It was through organizing a faculty group to support the budding union that she met her second husband, Harlon Dalton, or as she preferred to refer to him, her “last” husband. He was a professor at Yale Law School at the time, and later became an Episcopal priest. They proudly described themselves as a “union couple” even though neither of them belonged to an actual organized labor affiliate. In 1991, Jill was hired by Hill Health Center to create and manage an HIV/AIDS mental health program. This entailed developing a user-friendly intake process, hiring, training, and supervising case managers, and providing psychiatric care to people in acute distress. While working at Hill Health Center, Jill attended Teachers College at Columbia University, where she engaged in qualitative research designed to illuminate why people living with HIV/AIDS often were unwilling to reveal their illness to their families or to their social networks. Jill converted her research into a dissertation, and in 1997 was awarded a doctorate in nursing education (Ed. D.). That same year Jill began teaching at the College of New Rochelle, attracted to its concentration in holistic nursing. While at CNR, she struck up a friendship with the college’s master gardener. This led her to think about the intersection between his work and hers. Soon she was teaching a class called “The Garden as Healer.” And soon after that she began working on a website called “Tending Nightingale’s Garden”. It houses a collection of meditations for nurses written by Jill, with accompanying botanical illustrations drawn by Jill. After leaving the College of New Rochelle in 2001, Jill took a long overdue break from the working world. In 2006 she plunged back in, accepting a position on the faculty of the School of Health and Human Services at Southern Connecticut State University. While at Southern, Jill’s scholarship focused on spirituality and nursing. Her teaching included electives in guided imagery, mind-body connections, and spirituality. Jill’s final teaching appointment, from 2011-2015, was at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. When asked to describe the experience, her usual answer was: “What could be better? I get to work for the Queen of Heaven!” Earlier this year, Jill’s many professional accomplishments were acknowledged by the Connecticut Nursing Association, which conferred upon her the Florence S. Wald Diamond Jubilee Award for outstanding contributions to nursing practice. After retiring in 2015, Jill engaged in a wide range of creative and life-giving pursuits. She continued to make jewelry. She continued to sing first soprano in The Connecticut Women’s Chorus, also known as Another Octave. She stepped up her gardening game, at her summer house in Matunuck, Rhode Island and at The Episcopal Church of St. Paul & St. James. Inside the church (where she worshiped for nearly 40 years), Jill continued serving as a liturgical assistant, and began providing clinical supervision and pastoral support to the parish’s pastoral care team. Jill was an amazing cook, who could turn leftovers into a gourmet meal. Her activism continued unabated, including regularly escorting Planned Parenthood patients through a gauntlet of anti-abortion protestors. Prior to her cancer diagnosis, Jill loved physical activity – hiking, biking, kayaking, and dragging her husband to the gym. In recent years one of her greatest satisfactions was serving as a “loving whisperer” at The Connecticut Hospice in Branford, sitting quietly by the bedside of people who were actively dying and, if it seemed appropriate, singing softly to them. Jill reluctantly gave up this labor of love when it became apparent that she might soon become a hospice patient herself. Jill was predeceased by her parents John and Virginia Berlenbach, and by her oldest brother Thomas Berlenbach. In addition to her husband Harlon Dalton and their dog Zeke, Jill’s survivors include her brother John Berlenbach and his wife Betty, her brother Dan Berlenbach and his wife Yumie, and a host of lovely and quirky nieces and nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, and cousins. A Celebration of Jill’s life will take place on Thursday morning at 11am in the Episcopal Church of St. Paul & St. James. Burial will be privately held. It was Jill’s request that in lieu of flowers donations be made to the charitable organization of your choice.

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Events

Dec
09
Visitation
Thursday, December 09 2021
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM
Episcopal Church of St. Paul & St. James
57 Olive Street
New Haven, CT 06511
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Masks are required for services
Dec
09
Service
Thursday, December 09 2021
11:00 AM
Episcopal Church of St. Paul & St. James
57 Olive Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Get Directions
View MapTextEmail
Masks are required for services