Mrs. Mildred Savage

Mrs. Savage was born in New London, the daughter of Ezekiel and Sadie Spitz. She graduated from The Williams School and Wellesley College and began her writing career shortly after college.

She married Bernard L. Savage of Norwich in 1941. Mr. Savage died in 2002.

Mrs. Savage's first book, "The Lumberyard and Mrs Barrie", published under a pseudonym, was a light-hearted work about a young couple starting a lumber yard, as Mr. Savage had done in Norwich. Her next book, "Parrish", was a novel about life on a tobacco plantation in the Connecticut River Valley during the 1950s and was made into a major motion picture. Her next novel, "In Vivo", told the story of the search for a wonder drug, a book that Mrs. Savage researched at Pfizer in Groton. Both "Parrish" and "In Vivo" were Literary Guild main selections.

Mrs. Savage was also the author of "A Great Fall", a non-fiction work about a 1966 murder trial in Litchfield, that won the Edgar Allen Poe Award as the best non-fiction book of 1971. Her last novel, "Cirie," was based on the lives of members of her husband's family caught in the sweep of the Russian Revolution.

Mrs. Savage is survived by a daughter, Susan Savage Simpson, of Katonah, N.Y.; and a son, Michael Savage of Groton Long Point; and by a granddaughter, Mariana Savage and a grandson, Eric Simpson, both of New York, N.Y.

A private funeral was held on Oct. 9, 2011.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to Hospice Southeastern Connecticut, 227 Dunham St., Norwich CT 06360.

The Church and Allen Funeral Home was entrusted with arrangements.