Beautiful funeral service for Nuala Pell today at Trinity Church in Newport today. Dignified but not stuffy. Emotional but not unctuous. The Episcopal service's cadence was soothing. There was just one eulogy, by her son Christopher Thomas Hartford Pell, and that low-key, though he had to stop and collect himself several times. So much history there, too. I sat next to the pew where Washington and QE II sat.
And even the controversial park next to church designed by Maya Lin did not feel at all controversial on the beautiful morning.
And as usual with funerals of old people (Mrs. Pell got to 89), the atmosphere inside and outside the church was not grim. Her death was treated as a graceful exit after a full life.
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