[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 2]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 1531-1532]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 COMMEMORATING THE LIFE OF JEAN HANDLEY

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ROSA L. DeLAURO

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, February 22, 2010

  Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I rise to commemorate the life and work 
of Jean Handley, an inspiring leader in our New Haven community and a 
long time friend to the arts and to the dispossessed, who passed away 
at the age of 83 last month.
  A path-breaking career woman who spent three decades working for AT&T 
and Southern New England Telephone, SNET, Jean knocked down barriers 
for working women across Connecticut. After serving 10 years as the 
Executive Director of the Connecticut League of Women Voters, she 
joined SNET in 1960 and later AT&T in 1972. Six years later, she was 
the highest ranking female employee in the Bell system, eventually 
retiring as Vice-President of Public and Corporate Relations in 1989. 
And she was the first female member of the Quinnipiack Club, a New 
Haven business institution since 1871. As it turns out, she was elected 
to the Club because she refused to enter through the kitchen there, as 
was the questionable custom for women before Handley gently and firmly 
put a stop to it.
  This was the type of leadership Jean showed throughout her life--She 
led by example, with grace, elegance, good humor, and enormous 
competence.
  Her career aside, Jean was a passionate admirer of the arts and a 
dedicated supporter of non-profits and community service efforts in our 
state. She was a longtime board member of Learning, Education, and 
Athletics in Partnership, LEAP, the Long Wharf Theatre, and the New 
Haven Symphony. In addition, she served as an Emeritus Trustee of her 
alma mater, Connecticut College, as well as the University of New 
Hampshire. And, in 1996, she was a co-founder of the International 
Festival of Arts and Ideas, an 18-day arts festival in New Haven that 
now attracts over 100,000 people each June. True to her enthusiasm, her 
passion for the arts, and her diligence, Jean not only commissioned a 
market study to ascertain the appeal of the festival first, she 
researched the weather to figure out the best two-week window to hold 
it.
  Last December, in her last public appearance before succumbing to the 
cancer she had so bravely and silently fought, Jean was awarded with 
the Connecticut Arts Council's

[[Page 1532]]

C. Newton Schenk III Award for Lifetime Achievement, which deemed her a 
``life-long champion of the region's arts organizations and an 
individual of exceedingly high standards.'' That she was. Our city of 
New Haven, and our world, is a smaller place with her passing.

                          ____________________