Denise Rachelle Polivy

Denise R. Polivy, of Willington, CT died suddenly of a massive coronary on Thursday, November 29, 2018.  

Denise was born on June 6, 1953 in New York City and spent her early childhood in the Bronx. She received a BA from Wesleyan University (Connecticut) in 1975, and an MS in Computer Science from Dartmouth in 1982. She worked for a number of years as a programmer and database manager for large corporations in North Carolina and in Oklahoma.  In 1994 she and her husband moved back to the east coast. From negotiating software contracts Denise had become interested in intellectual property law, and she changed careers and went to law school.  She received a J.D from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1997, as her interests shifted to bankruptcy law. She clerked for Federal Bankruptcy judge Robert Krechevsky in Hartford, then worked for a number of years as an associate first for Bingham Dana in Hartford, then for Baker, O'Sullivan, and Bliss in Wethersfield. She retired from the practice of law in 2015.

Denise was an avid athlete, enjoying bicycling, skiing, snowboarding, and mountaineering.  While living in Oklahoma she went on numerous hut-to-hut telemark skiing tours in the Colorado rockies, and skied across the Wapta Icefields in the Canadian Rockies on telemark skis in 2001. As well as week long backcountry climbing trips in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming she climbed a 16000 foot peak in Ecuador in 2004.  From telemark skis snowboarding eventually became her favorite.  She attended several winter-time women's snowboard camps in Vermont run by members of the US Women's Olympic snowboard team.  After recovering from spinal surgery she was looking forward to returning to snowboarding this winter.

While in Oklahoma she acquired a taste for bluegrass music, followed by a number of banjos and mandolins.  Bluegrass groups were more difficult but not impossible to find in northeastern Connecticut.  Denise had enjoyed the summercamp experiences of her youth, and attended several summer time banjo and mandolin summer camps as an attorney.

She is survived by her husband Austen Clark.

Services will be held in the synagogue of her temple, Temple Bnai Israel, at 383 Jackson Street, Willimantic, at 1 PM on Sunday, December 2, 2018. The service will be followed by a brief graveside service at Temple Bnai Israel Cemetery, Mansfield, CT on RTE 32. To sign the online memorial guestbook, please visit www.manchesterfh.com

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Denise Rachelle Polivy, please visit our floral store.