Obituary of Martha S Frawley

Martha “Sherry” Frawley, 74, of Bernardsville, NJ passed away on Friday, November 19, 2021. Born on a grapefruit ranch in Brawley California, Sherry moved with her family within California, eventually settling in Rancho Palos Verdes. She graduated from Palos Verdes High school and was a member of the first four-year graduating class of Pitzer College, in Claremont, California. After college, she earned a post-graduate degree in international studies from the Institut des hautes études internationals, in Geneva, Switzerland, and continued her studies at American University in Washington D.C. A devoted student of art history, she was a self-educated expert on Italian Renaissance and Dutch Genre painters. She prided herself on a unique ability to find works by famous artists in obscure churches on the back streets of Rome and in small Italian villages. Fluent in French, she was equally at ease conversing with French museum guides or arguing with Parisian cab drivers. Her eclectic interests included baseball and football - She was devoted fan of the long-suffering Mets and could recite their pitching rotation two weeks in advance. In her hometown of Bernardsville, New Jersey, she served for twenty-five years on the Bernardsville Environmental Commission and was an active and enthusiastic Commission Chair for fifteen of those years. Her detailed knowledge of the arcane requirements of stormwater runoff regulations, protected species habitats, and wetlands requirements made her a valuable resource to local land use boards, and the implacable foe of careless developers. She was awarded Bernardsville’s Environmental Stewardship Award in 2016. She is survived by her husband Robert of Bernardsville, NJ, her daughter Meghan and granddaughter Gracie of Redlands, CA, and her sisters Penny (Geoffrey) Ford of Carmichael CA, and Melissa Van Liere of Nevada City, CA. She was predeceased by her son Garrett in 2016. A gathering of friends and family will be planned for the Spring, when the weather is warm, the leaves are out and hopefully, the winter Covid surges will be behind us. In lieu of flowers, contributions in Sherry’s memory may be made to: African People and Wildlife Fund PO Box 624, Bernardsville NJ 07924, https://africanpeoplewildlife.org or Raritan Headwaters Association PO Box 273, Gladstone, NJ 07934, https://www.raritanheadwaters.org . For further information, or to leave an online condolence message please visit www.gcfuneralhome.com