Jerelyn Denise Fields, who spent 40 summers in Provincetown, died peacefully in her Hartford, Conn. home on April 11, 2024 surrounded by family and friends. The cause of death was pancreatic cancer. She was 73.
A special education teacher in the New Britain Consolidated School District for more than 40 years, she taught “compassion and acceptance because she lived it,” said one friend.
The daughter of Maurice Fields and Helen Raybeck, Jerelyn was born in Proctor, Vt. on Jan. 30, 1951, a day so cold that her mother told her there was frost on the inside walls of the small local hospital. She grew up in Danbury, Conn. and graduated from Danbury High School in 1968.
After earning B.S. and M.S. degrees in special education and educational leadership from Southern Connecticut State University, Jerelyn had a distinguished career working in elementary and middle schools. She affected not just the hundreds of students she nurtured in New Britain but friends and loved ones all over the country, especially in Provincetown, where she vacationed every summer. They spoke of her kindness, compassion, and generosity.
A former colleague said, “She taught her students and her peers to be positive and believe in themselves, to have an attitude of self-love and kindness, and to accept everyone for who they are.” She helped her students become independent and positive human beings. Last year, two students from her first year of teaching met her for lunch; she was thrilled to meet with them again.
Her longtime life partner, Maria Garcia, described Jerelyn as the kind of person who would thank you for a thank-you note. She would stop to help anyone in need, friend or not. She saw the best in everyone and especially revered family and friends.
Her niece Fields Knight wrote in an online remembrance: “Nothing will ever quite compare to all the summer days in Old Saybrook and Provincetown or being lulled to sleep in my younger years by a recording of Aunt Jere reading The Velveteen Rabbit. She saw beauty and humor in so much.”
Friends remember her laugh, and each has a favorite memory of shared laughter. One friend recalled the time they were driving and stopped the car suddenly because they thought they saw someone kidnapping a woman and putting her in a trunk. It turned out to be a golf bag.
Nature was central to Jerelyn’s life, whether kayaking on Lake Erie or at Herring Cove or Long Point. An avid birder, she went out to the dunes daily in the summer to walk the trail from Snail Road, riding through the quiet Provincetown streets on her bicycle at 6 a.m.
Another friend recalled her uncanny ability to find rocks in the shape of hearts. Charlene Schwabe wrote that “whenever Jerelyn heard that a friend had died in Provincetown, she would put that person’s name on a rock she had collected from here and place that rock in the water so they would be forever in Provincetown.”
During her 40 summers here, Jerelyn loved to count the shooting stars on August nights on the deck of Angel’s Landing with her sister and friends. She was fascinated by hawks, falcons, and owls.
“I enjoyed learning about what kinds of birds have what kinds of skeletons, and knowing what they might eat, so where I might find them, knowing their calls,” she said in a recent interview. “I just love all of that.”
She wanted to learn falconry but never could. But while she was in hospice care, she was able to see and handle a falcon and a hawk brought to her by the Twilight Wish Foundation, a nonprofit that grants seniors’ final wishes. The event was recorded by the local television station.
“She was an incredibly caring and thoughtful person who loved unconditionally and touched many people who live here,” said Charlene.
She is survived by her partner of 14 years, Maria Elena Garcia of Meriden, Conn.; her sister Jacqueline Donegan and brother-in-law Frank of Schenectady, N.Y.; her nephew Evan and partner Erin McKernon of Cleverdale, N.Y.; her niece Fields Knight and husband Jason of Greenwich, N.Y.; her great-niece Kennedy; her best friend, Jonathan D. Foote of Boston; her adopted family, the Hagans of Ohio; and many other friends.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to A Place Called Hope, 154 Pond Meadow Road, Killingworth, Conn. or the Twilight Wish Foundation at twilightwish.org/donate/.
A celebration of life in Provincetown is being planned. A Memorial Mass will be held at St. Patrick-St. Anthony Church, 285 Church St., Hartford, Conn. at 10 a.m. on Friday, April 26.
Messages of condolence may be posted at farleysullivan.com.
