Rosamond Stephenson Shannon

Born in Litchfield, CT on. March 15, 1929, Bobbie was the daughter of the late Edward Thomas Stephenson and Gertrude Sheil Stephenson of Farmington, Connecticut. She grew up in Farmington, and was educated at the Oxford School, where she began to develop her love of writing and poetry. She was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Smith College.

After graduating, she moved to New York, where she worked at Revlon Cosmetics as an assistant to Charles Revson, and later for Laboratory Institute of Merchandising. She was married to the late C.V. Pickering, Jr. in 1952 and was later divorced from him.

After moving to Greenwich in 1964, she began her long career in real estate at Preferred Properties. In 1972, she founded her own highly successful real estate firm, Pickering Associates. She also was a trustee of the Brunswick School and a director of the Greenwich Board of Realtors. After Pickering Associates merged with Douglas Elliman, she continued as President of Douglas Elliman Pickering Associates until her retirement in 1997.

In 1979, she was married to the late Philip Shannon, an Executive Vice President at Galbreath, Ruffin Corporation. She soon developed close relationships with her five stepdaughters. “Boz and Shan,” as they were affectionately called by their families, enjoyed many local adventures in his vintage cars, as well as making trips to California, France, and Ireland. Mr. Shannon, a graduate of Dartmouth College, died in 1986.

In 1997 she met the late Malcolm Decker through a summer writing program at Dartmouth, which was Malcolm’s alma mater. He and Rosamond, as he always called her, have lived in Greenwich for the last 18 years, returning to the Dartmouth summer program several times together. There she wrote memoirs of her life growing up on Greenbrier Farm, her parents’ dairy farm.

Bobbie loved to travel, especially to Africa, and she took many trips with family and friends to Kenya, Botswana, and Tanzania, as well as to France and Italy.

In recent years, as her Alzheimer’s Disease progressed, she has been cared for by Agnes Montenegro, with whom she spent many happy hours watching tennis and driving the back country roads of Greenwich.

Bobbie was a generous friend and wise advisor to those who worked with her, and to all her friends and family.

She is survived by her daughter Lisa Knight, son-in-law David Knight, granddaughters Amy and Elizabeth Knight, Elizabeth’s husband, Max Lieberman, daughter Ellen Pickering and son-in-law Andrew Bustamante. She is also survived by her stepdaughters Barbara Shannon, Marybeth Shannon and her husband, Chris Aguirre and their children Gracie, Mardie, and Devin, Ellyn Shannon and her husband Michael DeLorme, their daughter Abigail, Joan Shannon and her husband Ken Grillo and their daughter Julia, and Deborah Shannon and her sons, Alex and Nikki. She is also survived by Mr. Decker’s son Andrew, daughter-in-law Amy Engeler and grandchildren, James and Georgia.

A private burial will be held at Riverside Cemetery in Farmington, Connecticut.

A memorial service will be held at Round Hill Community Church, 395 Round Hill Rd. Greenwich, CT 06831 on Sunday June 14, at 2 PM.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Alzheimer's Foundation of America, 322 Eighth Ave., 7th fl., New York, NY 10001 or Neighborhood Studios of Fairfield County 391 East Washington Avenue Bridgeport, CT 06608