Edna Holland Tessell

After receiving her BFA from Hunter College in 1937, she married the love of her life, Samuel Tessell, with whom she lived and raised their three children in Rockville Centre, NY.

A lifelong learner, she worked for several years as a real estate broker during the heyday of the growth of the suburbs on Long Island, before attending Hofstra College where she received her MS in Elementary Education. She went on to work for the Hicksville Public School system where she taught several different grade levels while she continued her education at Queens College, eventually being awarded a Doctorate in Educational Administration. In 1975, she retired from the Hicksville Schools and shortly thereafter, moved to Williamsburg in Orlando, where she and her husband established what would be their retirement home.

Edna believed in service and had served in Rockville Centre on the Board of the Sisterhood of Central Synagogue of Nassau County for several years. She was a lifetime member of Hadassah and served as a Literacy Volunteer, drawing on her years of teaching. Additionally, she volunteered for 18 years at Dr. P. Phillips Hospital.

Her creativity extended to oil painting, sculpture, ceramics, woodcarving, dressmaking, knitting and embroidery. There was perfection in everything she touched. Long before most people knew what the Internet was, she kept in touch with world events and managed her business affairs online.

She was a master bridge player and organized a large bridge club in Williamsburg where she continued to play until her death last week. Even though her sight began to fail, she compensated and continued to be a voracious reader, to play Scrabble weekly. A lover of all things cultural, days before her death, she had attended a film and dinner with friends.

But Edna was much more than the sum of her accomplishments. Her warmth and dignity, her genuine interest in people and their response to her non-judgmental nature made her much loved by friends as well as family. She was, above all things, a sensible, no nonsense woman, who absorbed life’s challenges and managed them intelligently and with grace.

Edna’s open heart and loving ways enveloped her children, their children and spouses, her grandchildren and their life partners and her great grandchildren. She will be missed by a large circle of friends and her extended family, including her sisters-in-law Maxine Dreizen of Eastchester, NY and Phyllis Robbins of Palm Coast, Fl.

Edna is survived by her daughter Linda Lefkon Bomse of Huntington, NY; her son James Tessell of Grebo, Linkoping, Sweden and his wife Eva; her son Douglas Tessell and his wife Joan of Orlando. She is remembered with adoration by her grandchildren Josh Lefkon of Greenlawn, NY; Tammy Lefkon Schoenfarber and her husband Jay of Irvington, NY; Malin Tessell and her fiance Frederic Seisig of Stockholm, Sweden; Johanna Blixt Tessell and her husband Johan also of Stockholm, Sweden; and Karin Tessell of Linkoping, Sweden. She numbered among her great grandchildren, Samantha Schoenfarber, Justin Schoenfarber, Axel Blixt Tessell and Lilly Tessell. She is remembered with affection by the children and grandchildren of her daughter-in-law Joan whom she embraced in life: Mark Forman and his three sons, Tyler, Ryan and Justin and Craig Forman, his wife Jo Anne, and their daughters Annabelle Rose and Michaela Drew. She remembered with affection Andrew Reed Forman.

The funeral service will be held at 11:00 November 9, 2012 at Carey Hand Cox-Parker Funeral Home, 1350 W. Fairbanks Avenue, Winter Park, FL 32789 with burial to follow at All Faiths Memorial Park, 1390 Park Drive, Casselberry, Fl.

In lieu of flowers, please consider donations to Literacy Volunteers of America, Hadassah, Public Television or the American Heart Association.