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Danuta Legia Guziewicz

Danuta Legia (Orbinska) Guziewicz passed away peacefully at age 93 on May 19. She will be remembered by her three children, Renata, Joanna, and Andrzej, as well as by her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and her many friends and acquaintances. She was born in Grodno, Poland (now Belarus), where her father, Henryk Orbinski, was stationed as an officer in the Polish Army.

At the outbreak of war in 1939, she and her mother, Wanda, returned to Przemysl and Sambor, where the family was from, to avoid combatant forces. Both ended up near Dresden, Germany, as forced labor. They endured bombing by Allied forces intent on destroying the industrial capacity of the Reich, with frequent sheltering in building basements. At the end of the war, she pursued her education at Polish Technical College in Esslingen, Germany, where she made many of her close, lifelong friends. Many of them settled near one another in the United States, where their shared experiences of enduring war forged close ties.

Before coming to America, she pursued employment in Australia, which offered displaced persons the chance to find meaningful employment and the promise of a new life. Later following her father and mother, who moved to the United States, she moved to Athens, Georgia. Not satisfied with the opportunities she found there, she moved to the Northeast, where her friends from Esslingen had settled. She met and married and raised her children in Connecticut, always encouraging them to, above all, get an education, be a success in life, stand tall amongst the many tribulations that life would throw at them, and travel and explore the world. Having raised her family to adulthood, she moved to Florida to pursue a new beginning after the end of her marriage. There she found happiness and prosperity, helping to care for elderly individuals, and helping to organize their homes and lives in general.

The final stage of her life, as age slowed her down, was to return to Connecticut to be closer to her children. She will be remembered for her happy and engaging laugh, her curiosity about world events, diverse knowledge on many subjects, her sense of style, and her love of travel, music and books.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, June 2, at Our Lady of Sorrows Church, 14 Prospect Street in Essex, with burial following in Riverview Cemetery. May she rest in peace. Arrangements are in the care of the Robinson, Wright & Weymer Funeral Home in Centerbrook.