Trudy Agnes Rockwell-Gates

Trudy Agnes Rockwell – Gates passed from this life into the next world on Saturday (March 9, 2013) at the age of 65. The only child of the late Kenneth Edward Gates of Lincoln, Maine and Boston and Doris Jennette Rockwell Gates of East Hartford, Trudy was born in Hartford on April 3, 1947 and lived there most of her life. She attended Richard J. Kinsella School, formerly on Charter Oak Avenue and graduated from Hartford Public High School in 1965. She was employed by Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford for 33 years beginning as a nursing assistant for one year, then training as a practical nurse and working in that capacity from graduation with honors in 1967 until 1997. During that period, she worked in the Critical Care Units for 14 years and then transferred to the Section of Cardiology and Hoffman Heart Institute in 1981 where she worked as a staff LPN and also became Registered Cardiovascular Invasive Technician for the work in the Cardiac Cath Lab. In 1989, she was appointed Supervisor of the Section. In that same year, she traveled to Baghdad, Iraq where she worked with the late Dr. Arfan Al-Hani performing coronary angioplasty at Ibn-al-Bitar Hospital with a staff of nurses and physicians from Ireland. She was instrumental in setting up SFHMC as a testing site for Cardiovascular Credentialing International and in designing the Cath Lab Complex area in the Patient Care Tower which opened in August of 1996. In November of 1997, Trudy graduated from New York Regents (SUNY) College and received her RN in March 1998. Trudy loved gardening and was a seventh degree member of the Grange. She also had a great interest in art and music and traveled extensively over the years. She leaves behind many dear cousins and wonderful friends who were more than family. Among those are her beloved godchildren, Mary Ann Bettencourt, Christopher George and “the babies”, Briana and Illiana Rivera. Funeral services will be held on Friday, March 15, at 11 a.m. at the D’Esopo Funeral Chapel, 277 Folly Brook Blvd., Wethersfield. Burial will be in Cedar Hill Cemetery, Hartford. Calling hours will be held prior to the service, from 9:30-11 a.m. Contributions in Trudy’s memory may be made to the American Diabetes Association, 2080 Silas Deane Hwy., 2nd Floor, Rocky Hill, CT 06067. For online expressions of sympathy, please visit www.desopo.com.