PLEASE NOTE:
An online memorial service will be held via Zoom on April 25 at 1 pm.
To attend, please contact Wendy Kahn for details at wpk315@gmail.com.
Ann Carolyn Sweet D’Esopo Phillips passed away on February 28, 2020 at Phelps Memorial Hospital after a long illness.
Ann was born to Dr. Louis and Helen Sweet D’Esopo of Tarrytown on 4/10/1933 and spent nearly all her life in the village, where she raised a family and volunteered tirelessly. Graduating from Wellesley College (1955), she went on to author a paper on oxygen metabolism published in the American Journal of Physiology while working in the laboratory of Dr. Nicholas Green at Yale Medical School. She married Dr. Raymond Phillips and the couple settled in Tarrytown in 1964. Professionally, Ann was office manager at ADT Corporation for 17 years. Ann played a leadership role in an extraordinary number of volunteer organizations in Tarrytown throughout her life, some up until her final weeks: the Junior League of Westchester, the 1970 Tarrytown Centennial Committee, Art of the Nativity, the Tarrytown Historical Society, the Herbert E. Lyon Award committee (bestowing a prize for leadership to a Sleepy Hollow High School senior), the Neighborhood House, the Choral Arts Society and the Hudson Chorale, and ITAV/It Takes a Village 10591 (of which she was a founding member). Being exceptionally well-organized and good with numbers, she was valued as Secretary/ Treasurer of several of these organizations, but would always fill in with whatever was needed. She knit countless sweaters to send to impoverished children around the world. For nearly 40 years, she was on the Board of Directors, often serving as Grants Chair, for St. Faith’s House Foundation, supporting programs that offer needed resources to women, children, and families in Westchester. Throughout her life she was an active congregant at the Reformed Church of the Tarrytowns, where she especially enjoyed singing in the choir.
A licensed pilot, Ann soloed at the age of 50 and flew for 10 years. She especially enjoyed spending time at the family cottage in Chapman Beach, Westbrook, CT, where the breezes wafting off Long Island Sound stir memories of generations of her father’s extended family. Genealogical research of her mother’s family led to explorations of small towns in upstate New York with her cousin Sally Sweet Ward.
She is survived by her former husband, her three children: Wendy Phillips Kahn, Andrew Phillips (Brenda Koenig) and John Phillips (Kate Phillips), and eight grandchildren: Samuel Kahn, Julia Kahn (Himanshu Agrawal), Michael Phillips, Sophie Seypura (Patrick Seypura), Juliette Phillips, Corbin Phillips, Sage Phillips, and Jonas Phillips.
We will celebrate her life at a memorial service on April 25 at 11:00 a.m at the Reformed Church, 42 N. Broadway, Tarrytown.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Reformed Church of the Tarrytowns (https://reformedchurchtarrytowns.org/) or the Elizabeth Mascia Child Care Center (http://www.masciachildcare.org/)
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