Stephanie Miner passed away peacefully on July 15, 2023.
In mid-January, Stephanie had a severe head injury and was hospitalized for three weeks. She then was transferred to Elderwood in Burlington, where she began receiving hospice care.
Stephanie was born in Bogliasco, Italy, to parents Roland Lushington Hayes and Marcia “Mimi’ Hilda Chaukley. Her father was British, and her mother was American.
Her husband, Donald Miner, and brother, Guy Hayes, preceded her in death. She is survived by stepchildren Helen Nagel and Steven Miner and by her brother’s four children, Stephanie Gotlieb, Arabella Hayes, Sholto Hayes and Oliver Hayes.
Stephanie often said she’d had a very lucky life. She had many adventures. In 1939, when she was 10, to avoid the ravages of the German bombing, her mother moved the children from London to Vermont, where Stephanie attended an Episcopal boarding school for girls. As a member of the Lushington family, Stephanie was presented to the court of King George VI at Buckingham Palace when she was a teenager. Stephanie lived in the UK for a while during early adulthood, where she trained, qualified and worked as a nurse at Guy’s Hospital in London. She spent time with her father and grandmother in Europe and extended periods in Hong Kong with her mother and stepfather, a British diplomat.
In the 1960s, Stephanie decided to reside permanently in the United States. She moved to Greenwich Village in New York City. While working for New York University, she assisted the French department and created a French language index of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She was employed by the Lehman Brothers, and worked for George Ball, an American diplomat.
Beyond work, Stephanie was passionately engaged in her community, helping to install a public garden with a recycling shed and fighting to stop a huge traffic overpass to protect the health of community residents. She volunteered to help on a project headed by Mayor John Lindsay and was involved for many years in supporting a theater company, along with a group of women who called themselves “The Snarks.”
Stephanie lived a life surrounded and nourished by flowers, fungi and music. Upon moving to Burlington in the 1980s, she enrolled in a Church Street Center adult course on wild mushrooms, because she wanted to connect with people who shared her deep interest in mycology. She worked for Dr. Jerold Lucey, a prominent neonatal specialist. The connections that Stephanie made blossomed into a whole series of adventures, including the formation of the now defunct Vermont Mycological Society. She and her husband, Don, saw a need to preserve the plant collections at the University of Vermont Horticulture Farm from suburban development and formed the Friends of the Horticultural Farm in 1994. Stephanie took on a leading role on the board of the Friends, as well as being a tireless volunteer coordinator.
Her home garden in South Burlington was a world-class wonder of color and texture and one of the joys of her life. Don supported her carefully curated home garden, which had been on the Flynn Garden Tour, and she supported Don in his volunteer work for the Saint Albans Museum and the Ethan Allen Homestead. She was a valued member of the team at the annual Burlington Youth Orchestra used instrument sale. She was an enthusiastic leader of the stage decoration crew for the Champlain Valley Folk Festival. She was an active volunteer for the Lyric Theater and an engaged participant in the Elder Education and Enrichment program.
Stephanie had an acerbic wit and was not afraid to say what she thought. Her final years were spent at the Residence at Shelburne Bay, where she served on several committees. She continued to support the many causes she believed in, including women’s rights, and had a deep interest in world events right to the end. Stephanie was truly one of a kind.
The family wishes to thank Stephanie’s many friends who visited her after her injury. The family is also thankful for the care and compassion she received from the medical teams at the UVM Medical Center, Elderwood in Burlington and Bayada Home Health Care.
There will be a memorial service on Wednesday, August 23, at 3 p.m., at All Saints Episcopal Church, 1250 Spear St., South Burlington, where Stephanie and Don were married in 1996.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent in her memory to the Nature Conservancy, 575 Stone Cutters Way, Montpelier, VT, 05602 (802-229-4425 or vermont@tnc.org) or to an organization of your choice.
Arrangements are entrusted to the Brady & Levesque Funeral Home, where fond memories and condolences may be shared with Stephanie’s family at bradyandlevesque.com.
This article appears in Jul 26 – Aug 1, 2023.