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05/16/2012 02:00 PMBarbara Comfort, 95, died peacefully on April 22. Known to all as “Bobby,” she lived in New York City, Landgrove, Vermont, and North Branford. She was born in Nyack, New York, grew up in Engelwood, New Jersey, and studied painting at the National Academy of Design and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at Fontainebleau in Paris.
A landscape and portrait painter, Bobby also engaged in many other enterprises. During World War II, she ran a welding factory for Electrons, Inc. that made electronic tubes for the U.S. Navy. In the 1970s, having started a Lucite design company, she invented the first Cuisinart blade holder; and in the 1980s, she became a mystery writer, creating a series of murder mysteries based in Vermont that are still sold throughout the state. Bobby also built the first modern house in Landgrove, Vermont, which was on the cover of American Home in 1949.
A bon vivant and world traveler, Bobby would occasionally burst into French songs after dinner. She will be missed greatly by her family and many friends.
She is survived by her sister, Carol Comfort Felker of Mountain Lake, Florida, and was also the beloved “Auntie Mame” to her niece and three nephews, John Comfort of New York City, Jane F. Matz and Charles J. Felker, both of Washington D.C., and Stephen C. Felker of Chicago. She was predeceased by her brother, Walter Rockefeller Comfort III, formerly of Tampa, Florida.
The W.S. Clancy Memorial Funeral Home, Branford, was in charge of arrangements.