Jacqueline Werner

Jacqueline Libby Rosenfeld was born to Rebecca Kemler Rosenfeld and Dr. William H. Rosenfeld in Hartford Hospital on January 31,1934. She grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut and graduated from Hall High School in 1951. She then went to Smith College and majored in French. While at Smith, she met Frederic P. Werner, who was at Amherst College, and they married in 1955, 12 days after her graduation. Fred was at Columbia Law School, and Jacky enrolled in Columbia Teachers College, graduating with an MA in 1956. After a summer in France, she started teaching in New York City. This only lasted until December, and her first son, Kenneth, was born in January, 1957. Jacky and Fred lived in Manhattan until 1962, and then, with two children and a third on the way, moved to White Plains. In 1965, Fred got a job in Connecticut, and they were happy to move to West Hartford.

As the children were growing up, she was very involved with their schools, including the PTOs. In addition, over the years she was Chair of the Smith College Club and on the Boards of the League of Women Voters, the Hartford Stage Company, the Mark Twain House and Congregation Beth Israel. In 1973, she got a second MA in special education at University of Saint Joseph. In 1974, refugees from southeast Asia were coming into West Hartford, and she was asked to write a program for them. She began teaching these students English as a Second Language, and then others from a number of other countries at Hall High School in West Hartford and the University of Hartford for over 25 years.

Jacky and Fred always travelled and spent two summers doing UC Berkley in Paris. When grandchildren arrived, they took seven wonderful grandchildren trips. In 2001, she retired and she and Fred moved to Washington DC, where one of their sons had moved with his family. Fred died in 2005 after they had celebrated their fiftieth anniversary, and she was “fixed up” with Dr. Richard Soffer (they were together for 16 years before he died). In 2020, they moved to Duncaster in Bloomfield, Connecticut. She leaves three sons and their spouses, Ken (Rhea), Bob (Suzanne) and James (Suzanne Kho), five grandchildren and two greatgrandchildren.

A funeral service will be held at Congregation Beth Israel, 701 Farmington Avenue, West Hartford, Connecticut at 1 PM on Thursday, September 17. A burial will take place at Congregation Beth Israel Cemetery, 119 Affleck Street Hartford, CT 06106.

If you'd like to make a charitable donation in memory of Jacky, the family suggests the Jacqueline and Frederic Werner Fund at the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Hartford or the Hartford Stage Company.