Mrs. Arden Reardon

Arden Reardon 1934 - 2016 PITTSFIELD -- Arden Reardon, of Jekyll Island, Georgia and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, succumbed to complications of pneumonia at Baystate Medical Center on Thursday, January 14. She was born in Torrington, Connecticut on March 22, 1934, the daughter of Edward and Ruth Haas Simmons. Arden had a lifelong interest in all things musical and was the assistant organist at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Torrington as a teenager and later was the first organist at the newly founded Our Savior Lutheran Church in South Windsor, Connecticut. She was an accomplished pianist who performed Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto before an audience of nearly one thousand as a senior in high school. She was also a proficient bell ringer who played in the bell choir at Zion's Lutheran church, Pittsfield as well as at several other Pittsfield area churches. Arden learned the typesetting trade in the 1950's, operating a Linotype machine long before the advent of digital typesetting. When the digital revolution arrived she quickly embraced it and started her own company, Keystrokes, specializing in the composition of textbooks with complex musical notation for several major textbook publishers. After retiring and one never to be idle, she put her belongings into storage, purchased a large wood sailboat, the USV Junket and embraced life on the water. Arden and Tom traversed the Intracoastal Waterway from New England to Florida several times before settling at Jekyll Island Georgia and made many dear lifelong friends in their travels. Three days before being taken ill she sailed from Jekyll Island to St. Mary’s Island, put the sailboat in dry dock to begin her new adventure back in the Berkshires, a large multigenerational family home. Her family is heart broken that we will not realize this together. Arden is survived by Thomas Reardon, her husband of 64 years, and four children; Laurie Green of Pittsfield, Karen Lasbury of Key Largo, FL, Jeffrey and Matthew Reardon, both of Tolland, CT; her brother Robert Simmons of Coventry CT, as well as six grandchildren and six great grandchildren who adored her. A visiting hour with organ accompaniment will be held Thursday at 10 a.m. in the vestibule of Zion's Lutheran Church on First Street followed by a Liturgy of Christian Burial at 11 a.m. by Rev. Timothy Weisman. Burial will be at Hillside Cemetery in Torrington on Friday. In lieu of flowers a contribution to the Zion’s Lutheran building fund is suggested.

Mrs. Arden Reardon

March 22, 1934 - January 14, 2016