Lavonne Elvira Erikson Reed

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Former Newtown [naviga:h2 style="line-height:13.0pt"]

Savings Bank Receptionist [/naviga:h2][/naviga:h2]

Lavonne Elvira Erikson Reed, 88, died January 16, at The Lutheran Home of Southbury, after struggling for many years with Alzheimer’s disease.

She was born August 8, 1923, in Pittsburgh, the daughter of Adolf Erik and Karin Skog Erikson, both the children of Swedish immigrants. Mrs Reed’s Swedish heritage remained very important to her all her life.

She attended Pittsburgh public schools and completed a semester at Carnegie Mellon University before World War II and other family commitments ended her studies. During the war, she served in the Pittsburgh USO, where she met her husband, Lawrence Reed of Hollis, N.Y. She married him in 1949 and “came East” for good, living for a short while on 57th Street in New York City and for 19 years in Wantagh, L.I.

In 1971, Mrs Reed moved with her husband and two daughters to Newtown, where she lived for 33 years. Both her daughters were raised in Newtown and went to Newtown schools. She worked for ten years as a teller and then a receptionist at the main branch of Newtown Savings Bank.

After retiring, the Reeds traveled widely in the Unites States, Canada and Europe, and Mrs Reed was particularly pleased that she was able to travel to Sweden and meet the descendants of the part of her family who had “stayed behind.” In 2004, she and her husband moved to Heritage Village in Southbury.

Her daughters Lauren Reed, of Livermore, Calif., and Linda, and her husband Tony Strange, of Southbury; and one granddaughter survive Mrs Reed.

She was predeceased by her husband in 2009.   

The service and burial will be private. Arrangements are in care of Honan Funeral Home, 58 Main Street in Newtown.

The Newtown Bee        February 3, 2012