Yvette Mickenberg passed away on August 10th, 2024 at Pomperaug Woods where she lived, very happily, for three years after over 40 years on Crook Horn Road, in Southbury, CT. She was with her daughters and was weeks away from her 84th birthday. 

Yvette loved creatures and living things both wild and tame: her photo albums were full of turkeys and her yard was full of autumn olives and forsythia, daffodils, lavender, and lilac. She appreciated pileated woodpeckers and chickadees, dogs and cats, craftsmanship and the arts: the Guilford Fair, the Goodspeed Opera House, Bantam Cinemas, the Bethlehem Fair. Yvette grew up in New York and moved to Southbury in 1971, where she valued folk learning, nature, and civic life. She was the founding President of the Southbury League of Women Voters. She was involved with the PTA, the Great Books program at Rochambeau Middle School, and the Democratic Town Committee.

Yvette was appointed by then-Governor Ella Grasso to be on the Board of Trustees for the Connecticut Community Colleges. She worked for the state of Connecticut for more than twenty years and ran volunteer programs for the state and elsewhere. A member of B’nai Israel Synagogue in Southbury since its founding, she attended torah study there and was also active in the Greater Washington Coalition for Jewish Life. She volunteered at Flanders’ Nature Center and at Hollister House Gardens in Washington.

Yvette bloomed in Southbury; she loved its beauty and the kindness and capabilities of its people. She will be dearly missed by her daughters Risa Mickenberg of New York City and Julia Mickenberg of Austin, Texas; by her granddaughters Lena and Edie Birkholz; by her son-in-law Dan Birkholz and by Forrest Lahens; as well as by her dear friend Howard Troyansky; her brother and sister-in-law Mike and Irene Alter, her sister and brother-in-law Judee and Joel Carpet, and her niece Marisa Weissman and her family.

Yvette leaves a legacy of humor, exactitude, grace, large-heartedness, and a vast collection of museum shop gift cards and cocktail napkins. Yvette’s family is incredibly grateful to her neighbors on Crook Horn Road and to the people of Pomperaug Woods.

There will be a graveside ceremony at Knollwood Park/Mt. Carmel Cemetery in Ridgewood, Queens, on Wednesday, August 14th at 11:15 A.M. There will be a shiva and gathering in the Garden Room at Pomperaug Woods 80 Heritage Road Southbury on Thursday August 15th from 4-7 (with a short service at 5:00) and all are welcome. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Southbury Public Library or to Pomperaug Woods.