Sarah Smith Munley

Sarah Smith Munley died peacefully in her home in San Antonio, TX on Monday, December 22nd. She was 77. Beloved wife of John Munley, and mom to Lissa and Silas, Sarah will be remembered as a generous, spiritual, and exceedingly strong matriarch; a consistent and loving rock of her immediate family and more distant communities of loved ones. The oldest of four, Sarah grew-up in Syracuse, NY. She graduated from Skidmore College in 1964 and the University of Rochester with a PhD in Pharmacology in 1969, one of few women in their PhD science program at that time. Sarah had a long and distinguished career in science, first as a college chemistry professor and then as a pharmaceutical executive, where she led clinical trial design and project management teams.

Sarah was an engaged advocate for human rights and gender equality. In the 1990s she hosted an early in-home “women’s group” to encourage discussion of feminism in her local community, was one of the first members of her church (the Congregational Church of Needham) to stand in solidarity with their remote Guatemalan sister village against the repressive government there and, later in life she supported the efforts of the Matilda Gage Foundation to bring focus to the life and legacy of this important suffragist.

Sarah and John raised their family and have remained very close to their community in Needham, MA. In 2005 they moved to Highland Lake in Winsted, CT, where she became active in the Norfolk, CT Congregational Church of Christ. She cherished time with family and grandchildren on the lake, her morning swims with the Highland Lake swimmers and watching birds from the deck. Sarah and John regularly welcomed friends and family to stay and enjoy time together. In 2016, they settled in San Antonio, TX to escape the cold and spend time closer to John’s siblings. There she enjoyed painting, mapping her family genealogy, decorating with flair for every holiday and admiring all of the sequins on the gorgeous Fiesta outfits in her new town (she fit right in).

In addition to her husband, John, she is survived by two sisters and a brother (Lucy Kahle, Dody Coman and Bedford Smith) and her two children (Silas Martin and Lissa Martin Frenkel) and grandchildren. Silas and Lissa remember their mom as a thoughtful, loving mother, friend, teacher, and grandmother (to Flynn, Finley, Corabelle and Grey) and the most joyful singer in the pew at church (or, really, anywhere). She will be greatly missed.

Memorial services will be held in Texas and New England in the summer of 2021. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Girl Scouts of America at girlscouts.org