Marie Constance Krumeich, 97, died peacefully on Good Friday, March 29, 2024. Mrs. Krumeich was a lifelong resident of Greenwich, Connecticut. She was born Marie C. Lauricella and grew up on Milbank Avenue with her parents, Antonio T. Lauricella and Anunziata Tesoriero Lauricella, and six siblings, Thomas J. Lauricella, Elsie L. Rader, Santina L. Dennis, Kay L. Spiers, Anthony G. Lauricella and John J. Lauricella, all of whom predeceased her.
Mrs. Krumeich graduated from Saint Mary Grammar School in 1940 and Greenwich High School in 1944. She graduated from the College of New Rochelle in 1948, where she made lifelong friends. In 1949 she married the late Dr. Edward T. Krumeich and they had three sons, Edward, Jonathan and Christopher. In 1957 she was awarded a
master’s degree in education by Danbury State Teachers College (now Western Connecticut State University).
During World War Two, while a student at Greenwich High School, Mrs. Krumeich was involved in local civil defense efforts by volunteering to drive an ambulance, rolling bandages and taking her turns in the cupola of the old Town Hall and the wooden watch tower formerly located at the entrance to Tod’s Point on surveillance to spot any enemy aircraft or submarines threatening the Town.
Mrs. Krumeich was a retired schoolteacher who for thirty years taught in public schools in Greenwich, after early posts in New London, New Milford and Norwalk. For twenty- seven years she taught third grade in Greenwich elementary schools in Riverside, Glenville and North Mianus. Many of her former students when they encountered her in later years liked to reminisce about the roles they played in the play she wrote about the first Thanksgiving in Greenwich. Mrs. Krumeich is the author of “A Child’s Early History of Greenwich,” which was illustrated by her third-grade class and her late brother-in-law, Thaddeus Krumeich, a professional artist and illustrator. She was also the author of an historical bus tour of Greenwich, later published by the Woman’s Club of Greenwich in 1976. Mrs. Krumeich’s bus tour was taken annually by third graders in Greenwich public and private schools as part of their local history curriculum. After she retired, Mrs. Krumeich continued to organize the historic bus tour for the Woman’s Club.
Mrs. Krumeich had a special fondness for Nantucket. In 1949 she and her husband honeymooned at the Ship’s Inn. Years later they purchased a summer home on the island, which they named Coquille Cottage because it used to be the site of a scalloping business. She loved to share Nantucket with friends and family and her beloved black Labradors.
Mrs. Krumeich was the past President of the Woman’s Club of Greenwich. She was recognized as the Club’s Woman of the Year in 2017. As a young woman, Mrs. Krumeich was the Editor of “The Link,” the magazine published by the Junior Woman’s Club. She also was past President of the Greenwich branch of Soroptimist International and was a delegate to that club’s international convention in Brussels. In 1956 she was a delegate to the National Republican Women’s Convention in Washington, D.C. that endorsed the re-election of Dwight D. Eisenhower. She also was a fundraiser for the new Shakespeare theater to be built in Stratford.
Mrs. Krumeich was a member of the River Hills Ski Club in Stamford and loved to take her young family skiing at the Club’s lodge near Killington, Vermont. Mrs. Krumeich for many years was an officer and active member of the Old Greenwich Yacht Club, where she and her husband moored their sloop “Footloose” and spent many days with friends and family enjoying the beauty of Greenwich Cove and Long Island Sound. They were also members of the Greenwich Boat & Yacht Club.
Mrs. Krumeich loved to travel to Europe, South America, Mexico and the Caribbean, and usually scheduled a cruise to correspond with winter school vacations. As a member of the Wild Geese, she took a memorable trip to Ireland where she met the then President of Ireland, Mary Robinson. She also traveled to the Aeolian islands of Salina, where her father was born, and Panarea, where her mother’s family originated, in Italy off the coast of Sicily.
As a lifelong resident of Greenwich, Mrs. Krumeich had the privilege of celebrating the Town’s founding in 1640 at its tercentenary in 1940, as a cast member of the weeklong pageant that reenacted moments in town history on the old Greenwich High School football field, the town wide party celebrating the 350th anniversary of its founding in 1990, and the parade celebrating the founding’s 375th anniversary in 2015 in which she rode in a motorcycle side car dressed as Elizabeth Feakes, one of the founders of Greenwich.
Mrs. Krumeich is survived by her sons, Hon. Edward T. Krumeich II (Elizabeth), Dr. Jonathan T. Krumeich, and Christopher R. Krumeich, her daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Kneisel Krumeich, her grandchildren, Jonathan A. Krumeich (Molly Zarookian), Sarah A. Anctil-Krumeich (Aaron Anctil), Frederick T. Krumeich (Kelsey), Kel E. Krumeich (James Iorio), Dana A. Krumeich (Timothy Goutos), and her great-grandchildren, Cora and Owen Krumeich.
A wake for Mrs. Krumeich will be held at the Knapp Funeral Home, 134 Hamilton Avenue in Greenwich, on Thursday, April 4, 2024, at 4:00-8:00pm. A Funeral Mass will be held in Saint Mary Church on Friday, April 5, 2024, at 10:00am. Burial will follow at St. Mary Cemetery.
The family would like to thank the staff of the Nathaniel Witherell Nursing Home for the loving care given their matriarch during her final days. In lieu of flowers please send donations in her memory to the “Friends of Nathaniel Witherell”, 70 Parsonage Road, Greenwich CT 06830.