By the Family

Aug. 17, 2016:  Sixteen days after her 102nd birthday, Constance Joy Reimer Alvarez escaped her failing body, leaving this earth to her well-deserved reward.

Born in Denver, Colorado, on July 4, 1914, to Henry Charles Reimer and Lillian Mae Carnahan Reimer, she maintained a love for that place and her family connection there throughout her life. This, although the three moved East to her next-beloved place, Brooklyn, living briefly on Eastern Parkway while their house was built on W. 4th St., then a dirt road with but three houses.

There she attended a one-room schoolhouse until the third grade. She told stories of lamplighters, a place at the table for the uninvited guest, and the Depression, the huge lesson of her life. Now tales of jobs that lasted one or two weeks, and some only one day, but she, her friends, and husband-to-be rode the subway in formal clothes, dancing their way to Manhattan.

Her husband, Manuel Charles Alvarez, predeceased her when they were both in their 51st year. By then they lived in Bronxville. After a brief time, she became director of volunteers at Lawrence Hospital, a position she loved and was devoted to.

At 65, she retired, after earning the American Legions Americanism Award, and moved to Orleans, MA--on the Cape, where she found her paradise, busy with art groups, book clubs, volunteering, and entertaining every visiting family and friend. She treasured her surroundings and loved Cape Cod.

Constance, as she many times told her devoted children, loved her wonderful parents, her jobs, her husband, her art involvement, and the places and people she encountered each day.

In 2005, she moved to The Fountains at Millbrook in New York, creating a new life with new friends and staff to care about and love.

She is survived by her children and daughters-in-law, Constance Durham, Donald and Antoinette Alvarez, and Richard and Denise Alvarez, nine grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and six great-great-grandchildren, all devoted to her.

She was predeceased by her husband, her brother, Robert La Wall Reimer, and a son-in-law, James Michael Durham.

The family wishes to thank The Fountains at Millbrook, the doctors and staff of CareMount Medical Group, Vassar Hospital, and Hospice of Dutchess County for their caring expertise.

Constance's art is in many homes and her spirit is in many lives. She lived a life of integrity, generosity, and kindness, and that left us with the greatest gift of all, to know that we were loved.

Funeral arrangements are entrusted to Allen Funeral Home in Millbrook.