Cecelia Lois Freedland   Rosenberg Daniels

Cecelia Lois Freedland Rosenberg Daniels, 98, died peacefully, May 28, in New York City. She was born in Bridgeport, March 4, 1913, to Rebekah and David Freedland.

She won the Connecticut state girls’ tennis title in her senior year in high school. While a student at Barnard College, from which she graduated in 1933, she had the honor of being Bill Tilden’s partner in an exhibition mixed doubles game.

Married in 1942 to Dr Saul Rosenberg, she raised a family in Bridgeport. Widowed in 1988, she married Frank Daniels in 1991 and resided with him in Bridgeport and Newtown, until his death in 2004.

After careers in social work and teaching, Mrs Daniels decided to pursue her lifelong dream to be a lawyer. She entered New York Law School at age 59 where she made Law Review, graduated at age 62, and went on to practice law for 25 years. She used the unique set of skills she had honed in social work and teaching to concentrate most of her law practice on the representation of children whose parents were going through divorce, and earned a reputation among the judges in the Bridgeport family court system that led to special requests from judges and the family relations office for her to handle these cases on assignment. She moved to Manhattan in 2006.

Mrs Daniels was a gifted musician and pianist who could play complex pieces by ear and could transpose midsong as need to accommodate vocalists with limited singing ranges. This skill served her well during her summers as a camp music counselor in Massachusetts. “I could tell when a child was going off key and where he’d end up before he even knew it,” she said, “and I was already there.” Her family remembers her matzo ball soup as the best.

Three children and their spouses, Hannah and William Joseph Metzger, Deborah Miriam and William Henry Roach, and Hiram and Patricia Rosenberg; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren survive her.

Funeral services took place June 3. Burial will be private.

The family asks that contributions in her memory be made to Visiting Nurse Services of New York, Hospice at www.vnsny.org/hospice or Emily’s List at www.emilyslist.org.

The Newtown Bee        June 8, 2012