Leslie L. Smith

Leslie Le Blanc Smith passed away peacefully at home on December 21st, 2025. She was born in Norwalk, Connecticut on October 11, 1942. She was the daughter of Audrey Francis Leslie and Daniel Paxton Smith. In 1955, Leslie’s family moved to Warwick in Orange County, N.Y. She returned to Connecticut for college. After graduating from Silvermine College of Art with a professional diploma in Painting and an Associate of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture in 1964, she moved to New Haven with her first husband, Lloyd Le Blanc and son Basil. Lloyd obtained his master’s in fine arts in Sculpture from the Yale School of Art and Architecture. Leslie studied weaving with Anni Albers. New Haven was where their second son, Dumain Le Blanc was born before they moved to Washington, Connecticut to teach at Wykeham Rise, a private preparatory school for girls with an unusually strong program in the visual and performing arts.

After their divorce, Leslie returned to Orange County and worked at the Warwick Daycare Center where Director, Joan Hamling suggested she might work with Joan’s husband at Union Carbide Corporate Research in Sterling Forest. Originally hired as a temp in Bernie Hamling’s “Zircar” ceramic insulation group, Leslie also worked in the “Composites" group with epoxy and carbon fiber and for five years in “Hot Lab” maintenance at Union Carbide’s nuclear reactor.

While working at Union Carbide, Leslie met Clif Patrick, her life partner since February 1977.

In 1984, Leslie left Union Carbide to work for Johnston Construction Co. to pursue her interest in historic preservation, an interest that eventually became central to her life.

After joining the Chester Historical Society in 1988, Leslie focused on the restoration of the 1915 Erie Depot, reglazing the broken windows, scraping rafter tails, and priming the trim. She obtained the matching antique tile roof needed from a party in Michigan after a national search and arranged for its transport to Chester. She took on the restoration of the Porte Cochere stone flower box project at the 1915 Erie Depot and more recently co-ordinated work on the interior of the 1857 Winters/Lawrence house at #93 Brookside Avenue.

Her interest in the Preservation of the Historic Downtown in the lower Village led to an interest in municipal issues and Leslie was often seen at meetings of the Planning Board, the Village Board and/or the Zoning Board. She served as a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals from 2000-2007 and she was a member of the very first Village of Chester Comprehensive Plan Committee. She was recently appointed to the Chester Conservation Advisory Council.

Leslie has also been a Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Newburgh working on homes located at 60 Clark Street and 156 Dubois Street. An even more significant project, she feels, was her work documenting the Newburgh Peace Project. This project was a collaboration between religious and civic organizations. Working together, an imam, a rabbi, a priest, local children from Newburgh Neighborhoods and Arm of the Sea Puppet theater created a production, a play whose purpose was to support nonviolence; it was performed at the “Ritz” on Broadway in Newburgh. Children and adults of different faiths worked together writing scripts, creating puppets, whose impressionistic faces were created and added by Leslie who documented the entire production in photographs. Leslie also volunteered for Hospice of Orange and Sullivan County, and she chose them for her own end-of-life care.

Leslie is survived by her beloved sons Basil Le Blanc (Terry), Dumain LeBlanc (Meghan), her partner in life, Clifton Patrick, her two grandsons, Ian Le Blanc (Shannon), and Garrett Le Blanc; nephews Sean Charity (Tara), Adam Charity (Jody Rae) and great nephews Cavan Charity and Declan Charity as well as children of her heart; Cynthia Milo and Lisa Willner.

A funeral mass will be held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Monday, December 29th at 11AM followed by a burial at Lakeview Cemetery, 352 Main Street, New Canaan, CT 06840 at 2PM.

In lieu of flowers, Leslie requests donations be made to The Chester Historical Society, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Hospice of Orange and Sullivan County, or anyone’s charity of choice.