Findagrave: THE EAGLE-Middlebury, VT - October 10, 2002 - DANCER, DESIGNER GLORIA SHAW DIES - CORNWALL, VT - Gloria Shaw died Oct 2 at her Cornwall home in the loving care of a team of family members, caretakers and Addison County Home Health & Hospice staff and volunteers. The cause of death was cancer of the liver, which Shaw quietly endured for some months with the same dignity and thoughtfulness with which she accepted the onslaught of Parkinson’s disease years earlier. She was 80 years old. Shaw touched many people in the Middlebury, Charlotte and Burlington area during her nearly fifty years of residence here. She was known for her generousity of spirit and her ability to mix people of all ages in lively social gatherings. A lady of great taste and style, her creativity was always evident to her guests at her homes in Cornwall and on Thompson’s Point in Charlotte. Shaw was a dancer and choreographer with a keen eye for design and dress. She and her late husband, Gilbert Shaw, designed their house in Cornwall and the distinctive buildings of the Polymers Company on Route 116 in Middlebury during the 1950s and 1960s. Until her very last year she gave dance classes in her home to friends that over the years developed into a supportive group, which she referred to as the “Sisterhood.” Shaw was a vigorous part of the Middlebury Community Players and choreographed many of their musical productions, as well as fundraisers for the Porter Hospital. She served faithfully on the board of Green Mountain College for six years and was an early member of the Vermont Mozart Festival organizing board. Gloria Eksergian Shaw was born in Philadelphia on Oct 10, 1921. She was raised in an artistic and academic home living with her grandfather, Carnig Eksergian, a noted portrait painter, her mother, Maydell Hagenbuch, an accomplished cellist, and her father and uncle, Rupen and Levon Eksergian, distinguished graduates of MIT, who were know respectively for their design work on cannons, locomotives and automobile brakes. Shaw’s childhood memories at the dinner table often included international luminaries in the fields of physics and materials science. Her mother, Maydell, was an early patron of the late composer Alan Hovhaness, who stayed at Gloria’s Cornwall home when he visited Vermont in 1981 to conduct his symphony To the Green Mountains. Shaw was an accomplished horseback rider and dancer as a young woman. In her teenage years she danced with a professional troupe including venues with the Philadelphia Orchestra and performances at Longwood Gardens. After schooling at Quaker schools in Philadelphia, she attended Bennington College and the Julliard School of Music. At both institutions she studied with Martha Graham and at Julliard she studied music theory with Louis Horst, who was Graham’s mentor. During World War II she married Geisse Fuguet and moved to a historic farmhouse in Bucks County, PA, where she and her husband raised trotters and pacers. Her daughter, Gay (Fuguet) Regan, was born here. Shaw’s interest in travel led her to Vermont in a curious way. In 1953 she began traveling extensively in Europe and South America. That year she met her second husband, Gilbert Shaw, on the maiden voyage of the Italian oceanliner Andrea Doria and she later joined Gil in Middlebury. At home she became the close friend and confidant of Gil’s children, as well as a nurturing mother and grandmother to her daughter and grandchildren. Gil and Gloria were constant companions and continued to pursue their love of travel, visiting Gil’s extrusion patent licensees the world over and adventuring on ocean liners and yachts for pleasure until his untimely death in 1973. During an extended period of grief after Gil’s death, Shaw spent winters helping a long time friend manage Galley Bay resort on Antiqua. It was there that she met Dr Frederic Wertz, her loving companion of her latter years. Dr Wertz retired from his prominent psychiatric practice in Tenafly NJ and moved to Vermont, practicing psychiatry part-time in Middlebury and Shelburne. Together Gloria and Fred enjoyed theater, ballroom dancing and travel. Widowed again in 1995, Shaw’s life was enriched by her ever-widening circle of family and friends. During these final years she maintained her adventurous spirit, traveling as far as Salpan to celebrate the birth of her great grandchild, Katerina Retwaiut. Her death was a great loss to all those who loved and admired her. Tragically, two of her Shaw daughters, Sandra Gullikson and Nancy Well, were taken by ALS and cancer respectively during the summer of 2001. She is survived by her daughter, Gay Fuguet Regan and her husband Peter of Hinesburg, and step-daughter, Mary Shaw Mackay and husband Alan of Spokane, WA; her cousin and life-long friend, Brenda Eksergian Boehnert and husband Kenneth of Sarasota, FL, and her niece, who she helped to raise as a teenager, Mary Jane Shaw McKee and husband James of Potomac, MD. She has a number of living grandchildren: Kenneth Miller and wife Lisa, Happy Miller-Retwaiut and husband Ramon, Andrea Regan, Caressa Gullikson Houghton and husband Geoffrey, Jordan Gullikson, Margaret Mackay, Susie Mackay Healy and husband Keefe, and David Weil, as well as six great grandchildren. A memorial celebration of Gloria Shaw’s life is scheduled for Saturday, Nov 16 at 2 pm at the Congregational Church of Middlebury. Contributions may be made in Gloria’s memory to The Elderly Services in Middlebury or to the Addison County Home Health & Hospice.