Cecilia Claflen

Cecilia B. Claflen died Sunday morning at St. Peter’s University Hospital after a long illness. She was 93 years old.

Relatives and friends may call from 4 to 8 pm Thursday June 11 at the Jaqui-Kuhn Funeral Home 17 South Adelaide Ave, Highland Park. A funeral mass will be held at 10 am Friday June 12 at St. John the Baptist RC Church. 29 Abeel St, New Brunswick. Interment will follow at Resurrection Burial Park, Piscataway.

The daughter of Charles and Loretta Blundell, she was a lifelong resident of Highland Park and New Brunswick. She attended Highland Park High School during the depression and went on to the New Jersey College for Women, now Douglass College. There she met George L. Claflen to whom she was married for 66 years.

She worked at DuPont and Hercules in Parlin NJ during the war and became a homemaker and volunteer upon marriage, Cecilia read stories to children in New Brunswick elementary schools in the 60’s and 70’s when George served on the New Brunswick Board of Education.

At St. John’s church she served on numerous committees including the altar dressing group. She was an officer of the Women’s League of Rutgers University where she was the chair of the nominating committee. Her true love, however, was the New Brunswick Free Public Library where she was a trustee and became the first trustee emeritus serving for a total of30 years. She was a founder of the Friends of the New Brunswick Free Public Library also serving as its president.

The Libraries of Middlesex County (LMx) recognized her with their Trustee of the Year award in 2009. The following year the New Jersey Library Association honored her with their Trustee Recognition Award. That nomination stated: ” As a member, as an officer of the Board, and especially as President, Mrs. Claflen created a cooperative atmosphere…Her ability to guide a meeting so that all were heard and an effective consensus was reached was an education in parliamentary operation…She has been a key person in the rebirth of the …library despite her insistence that the success of this library is due to the efforts of many other people including her fellow Board members, the staff, Mayor Cahill, the City Council, and the Friends of the Library.”

Earlier in her life she travelled extensively with her husband to professional meetings in the Caribbean and throughout the United States. She was captivated by Impressionist art and lost no opportunity to visit major collections. She visited her son in Paris, and later fulfilled a life-long dream to see her father’s birthplace in Birkdale, England. Before her own illness she devoted years to the care of her husband.

She is survived by her son, George Jr., who is an architect in Philadelphia.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Friends of the New Brunswick Free Public Library, 60 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. Attn Cecilia Claflen Fund

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