Denie Sandison Weil

Denie Sandison Weil, 91, died on Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at her home in Washington, DC. She was not a woman to let the world pass her by. On the contrary, in both her private and public life, she gave it a few shoves to make the world revolve properly when it wobbled from its course. This she managed by dint of her extraordinary energy and organizational abilities-she was multitasking before the word was coined. She exerted quiet influence on those around her and on some of the most consequential organizations in the country. She served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards including the Board of Overseers of Harvard University, Fiduciary Trust International, Banner Life Insurance Company, the Dean's Council of the Harvard Divinity School and as a trustee of Radcliffe College. She and her husband, Frank A. Weil, provided early support to establish Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Business and Government, which was initially housed in Weil Hall. She also served as a long-time director and then president of the board of Washington's repertory theater, Arena Stage.

Denie Sandison was born on March 16, 1931, in St. Louis, Missouri. She was raised in Atlanta, Georgia where her father was a surgeon. She attended schools there and in Charlottesville, Virginia and entered Wellesley College, a bold choice for a young woman from the South. She transferred to Radcliffe College when she married Frank, then a Harvard undergraduate. She chose to major in physics but then was forced to switch to fine arts when she became pregnant with their first child, born her junior year. She graduated from Radcliffe with an AB degree cum laude in 1954. After Frank graduated from law school, the young couple settled outside of New York City, where they raised two daughters and two sons.

Their shared commitment to family and the communities in which they lived was to prove a large part of their life and the focus of their philanthropy. Denie especially loved the rugged coastal town of Stonington, Maine, on Deer Isle. She and Frank bought Grog Island, a bare granite-rimmed island in the Deer Isle Thorofare in the 1960s and adopted it as a summer retreat. Together they nurtured it into a rustic camp in which to gather friends and family. Denie took special pleasure in swimming daily in the cold waters of Penobscot Bay, taking hikes and picking raspberries with grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Stonington is the site of one of the great quarries of granite for America's public buildings, and the Weils, wanting to celebrate the town's history, created the Deer Isle Granite Museum in what had been the old pharmacy on Main Street.

She moved to Washington, DC in 1977 when Frank accepted the position of Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the Carter Administration. Both were lifelong Democrats and Denie had a special interest in criminal justice reform and voter participation rights, which she pursued in her work for the Vera Institute of Justice in New York, the German Marshall Fund in Washington, DC and the Citizens Participation Project in Washington, DC, of which she was president. She also derived much enjoyment from her association with the Arena Stage and other theater organizations in New York and London.

Being in the middle of public discourse suited her and one could meet nationally prominent figures at their house. Denie and Frank, for example, were early supporters and financial bundlers for a young senator from Illinois by the name of Barack Obama, and hosted events in their home for various candidates, including Joe Biden in an earlier bid for the Democratic nomination. A woman of substance and style, she loved to entertain, be it at their homes in Washington or New York, or when visiting Paris, London, Jackson Hole, and Maine. She was also an accomplished chef, known for souffles that always rose, popovers, pecan tarts, and freshly picked Maine blueberry pies. Her seemingly supernatural ability to manage so many friends and family members coming and going was a constant amazement to her many admirers. She loved to travel, to hike in Switzerland with children and grandchildren, and to explore the undiscovered. She could tell you how to take public transport from any airport in Europe to the center of town. She was all about efficiency.

She leaves behind her husband of 72 years (she died on Valentines Day, his 92nd birthday); her brother James C. Sandison (Nancy Harrison) of Maryland; and her four children: Debbie Weil (Sam Harrington) of Stonington, Maine; Amanda Weil of New York City; Sandison Weil of New York; and William Weil (Tracey Stearns) of Washington, DC; plus nine grandchildren: Eliza Myers (Minor Myers III) of New Haven, CT; Timothy Harrington (Jessica Harrington) of Ann Arbor, MI; Amanda Harrington of San Diego, CA; Stearns Weil of Washington, DC; Sandis Weil of New York; Phoebe Weil of Washington, DC; Samantha Weil of New York; Rex Weil of New York and Lucy Weil of Washington, DC. And six great-grandchildren: Dorothea Myers, Cornelius Harrington, Ruth Alice Myers, Josephine Harrington, Libby Myers and Minor Myers IV. Plus a large void in the lives of many.

A private service is planned.