Avid bridge player, gardener, active community member
Arly Waldron. (Courtesy photo)
Arleon Smith Waldron, 94, died Oct. 26, 2020, in Acton. Arly was the only child of Arthur and Leone Smith. She was born Dec. 20, 1925, in Wayland, Michigan, and named Arleon, a combination of her parents’ names. Arly attended high school in White Plains, New York, graduating in 1942 with a scholarship to Kalamazoo College in Michigan. She graduated from Kalamazoo in 1946 and returned to New York, working at Columbia University Teachers College while taking classes for a master’s degree, which she received in 1950.
She met Chauncey “Chan” Waldron in 1948 on a blind date. They had a secret wedding in Warren, Vermont, in October 1950, conducted by a justice of the peace and witnessed by two of Chan’s friends, and then had a church wedding in Brooklyn in March 1951. For their first months of marriage Arly lived and worked in Hanover, New Hampshire, while Chan resided at the Clark School, where he was a dorm master and science teacher. When he got a new job at the Boston Museum of Science, they moved to Boston, and then with the birth of their first daughter, Sue, to Waltham. After Sally was born they moved to an old house in Acton with 30 acres of land, where Louise and Jaye were born. Arly sang in the choir of the West Acton Baptist Church and in the Concord Chorus. She was a member of the Acton Woman’s Club and Garden Club and was an avid bridge player. In 1974 the Girl Scouts of the USA awarded her a certificate for her many years of service to the scouts.
When she and Chan moved to Harvard in 1990, Arly joined the Harvard Congregational Church the Garden Club of Harvard and continued to play bridge. She also sang with Harvard Pro Musica, along with daughter Jaye. She was a longtime participant in the Women’s Health Initiative, even returning a survey this year.
In 2019, Arly moved to Benchmark Senior Living at Robbins Brook in Acton, where she enjoyed renewing old friendships, making new friends, and, of course, playing bridge.
Her husband Chan died in 2004. She is survived by her daughters and their families: Sue and Bill Sample of Plantsville, Connecticut; Sally Ostlund and Ross Mclean of Australia; Louise and Bob Carter of Westford, and their daughter Hannah Carter of Minnesota; and Jaye and her husband Tom MacMullin of Harvard.
Burial in Harvard is private with the intent of a memorial service next year. Her memorial page can be found at actonfuneralhome.com.
