Sheila Margaret Miller Conners

Sheila Mar­garet Miller Con­ners, 81, of Pow­ell and for­merly of Delaware died Thurs­day (Feb. 2, 2012) at her home sur­rounded by her family.

She was born in Southamp­ton, Eng­land, on Feb. 7, 1930, to the late Ernest James and Brid­get Easter (Con­boy) Miller. She grew up in a num­ber of places in the “UK” dur­ing World War II as her father served in the Royal Air Force, hav­ing lived par­tic­u­larly around Not­ting­ham, Eng­land. She attended and grad­u­ated from the Kesteven Grantham Girls’ School; she also spent many sum­mers with her beloved grand­mother, Cather­ine Mary Mor­gan Con­boy Renil­son of Edin­burgh, Scot­land. On June 6, 1953, she mar­ried at St. Timothy’s Catholic Church in Not­ting­ham to her dear­est love and com­pan­ion, the late Paul Harold Con­ners, Sr. Their courtship began in Lon­don dur­ing 1952 while Paul was sta­tioned dur­ing the Korean War in the U.S. Air Force at Wethers­field Base in Essex, Eng­land. When Paul was dis­charged from the ser­vice, she came with him in 1954 to the United States, set­tling in Pitts­burgh, Pa., to make their home. Sheila and Paul moved to Delaware in 1966 when they trans­ferred here with PPG Indus­tries. Sheila, to the very end, remained a loyal sub­ject of Great Britain, always retain­ing her British cit­i­zen­ship and her alle­giance to the “mother coun­try.” She worked a num­ber of years with Pro­fes­sional Din­ing Ser­vices at Ohio Wes­leyan Uni­ver­sity and then worked and retired from the Delaware Gazette as an adver­tis­ing com­pos­i­tor. Sheila was a for­mer mem­ber of the Tots and Tod­dlers Moth­ers Club of Delaware and so enjoyed her monthly card club group for “Tripoli” that she had been play­ing with since 1966. Hav­ing “gypsy blood,” Sheila loved travel and returned a num­ber of times across the pond to visit her British fam­ily. She had a pas­sion for doing cruise vaca­tions and trav­el­ing to visit her chil­dren and grand­chil­dren across the United States. Her most favorite “employ­ment,” how­ever, was that of being a wife, mother, grand­mother and great-grandmother.

She is sur­vived by her six chil­dren, she lov­ingly referred to as the “loves of her life,” Bev­erly Anne (Alan) Reiner of Delaware, Paul Harold Jr. (Kay) of Jef­fer­son­ton, Va., Kelly Joanne (Greg) Moore of Newark, Kevin Michael (Linda), of Down­ing­town, Penn., Jill Fran­cis (Peter) Rimoldi of Mar­ion and Ale­sia Louise (Mark) Doughty of Fort Mill, S.C.; 17 grand­chil­dren, Kerry (Zachary), Cantrell, Paul R., Lau­ren, Alli­son, Erin, Cas­sidy, Kevin Jr. and Ryan Con­ners, Patrick, Kyle and Caitlin Moore, Matthew, Christo­pher and Evan Rimoldi and Nicholas and Alek­san­dar Doughty; great-grandchildren, Alexis and Kaleb Cantrell; a sis­ter and brother-in-law, Don­ald and Cathy Wood­ward of Not­ting­ham, Eng­land; a sis­ter, Joan Wilkie of Grantham, Lin­colnshire, Eng­land; as well as many nieces, nephews and cousins.

She was pre­ceded in death by hus­band Paul in Novem­ber of 2003.

The fam­ily will receive friends from 4 to 7 p.m. Sun­day, Feb. 5, at Robinson’s Funeral Home where a prayer vigil will be held at 4 p.m. A Catholic Mass of Chris­t­ian Bur­ial will be held at 10 a.m. Mon­day, Feb. 6, at St. Mary Catholic Church with the Rev. James Black offi­ci­at­ing. Bur­ial will fol­low in St. Mary Ceme­tery. The St. Mary Bereave­ment Com­mit­tee will host a lun­cheon in the Rod­man Neeper Com­mu­nity Room imme­di­ately following.

Dona­tions may be made in Sheila’s name to Mt. Carmel Hos­pice of Colum­bus, 1144 Dublin Road, Colum­bus, OH 43015.

Con­do­lences may be expressed at robinsonfuneralhomeinc.com.

Posted by Staff Reports Obits on Feb 4 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.