NORTH POMFRET — When landscapers came to cut the grass for Lysle and Elaine Chase, Elaine saw it as another opportunity to do what she had done so often in her life: Share with others.

“My mother was an amazing baker, and when my father could no longer mow the lawn, she made sure to bake cookies for the lawn mowers,” said their daughter Jenness Burns, of Hartland.

Small, thoughtful gestures of sharing her time and talents were common for Chase, whose family said she loved giving of herself in any way she could.

Chase, who died Jan. 5 at age 93, was a woman of boundless energy whose capacity for helping others and her community seemed limitless. From the hard work of running a dairy farm with her husband and raising her five children to hours of volunteer work for her community and travel, Chase kept running life’s race until the end.

“Our mom was a very busy, active woman up until her last years,” Burns said.

Chase’s community contributions included being a founding member of the Pomfret Fast Squad, and serving on the local school boards and the building committee for the Prosper Valley School, where she designed the school’s first landscape plan. She also was an active member of the North Pomfret Congregational Church, a trustee of the Abbott Library and a member of the Pomfret Historical Society.

“She had so much energy,” said her daughter Tamara Phillips, of Thetford. “She could run circles around the rest of us. She was just a very driven woman who was always doing something and lived life on her own terms, right to the very end.”

Born in Massachusetts, Chase lived on a dairy farm in her early years before the family moved to Stockbridge, Vt., to her grandfather’s poultry farm. She was educated in a one-room schoolhouse and then graduated from Whitcomb High School in 1948. By then, family circumstances required her to help out at home, cooking and taking care of the house and her younger brother.

She met her future husband, Lysle, on blind date and they were married in 1949, spending more than 71 years together until his death in 2020. After a year in Connecticut, the Chases moved to North Pomfret and eventually bought Galaxy Hill Farm in the mid-1950s where they raised their five children.

Jeanna Hamblet, the Chases’ oldest child, said while her father worked in the fields or barn and tended to the herd, across the street, in the family home her mom had her hands full raising the children and tending to her garden.

“It was an ideal life for a kid,” Hamblet, of Keene, N.H., said, recalling sledding in the winter, and climbing trees and riding bikes in the summer.

The sisters said being raised on a farm meant growing a lot of their own food, which their mother made into fabulous meals.

“We had amazing home-cooked meals,” Burns said. “My parents had a ginormous vegetable garden so we had fresh vegetables and locally raised meat.

“We always had sit-down dinners and that definitely transferred over to my family as I’m sure it did for my sisters. It was a time to gather and talk about our day. It was really a good backbone to our family relationships.”

Dinner was never complete without one of Chase’s legendary desserts.

“The house always smelled of wonderful sweet treats,” Phillips said. “She baked not only for us but the church, neighbors and others.”

The sisters laugh when they think about kids on the bus who were eager to trade store-bought snacks for their mother’s homemade goodies.

“We had homemade desserts all the time and maybe didn’t appreciate what we had,” said Hamblet.

The Chases sold the farm, with 50 milkers, in 1973, and built a new home in Pomfret. Elaine went to work for Sugarbush Farm in Woodstock where she stayed for 30 years before retiring in the mid-1990s.

Barbara Kelly knew Chase for about 50 years and did volunteer work with her including with Glad Rags in Woodstock, an all-volunteer organization that accepts used clothing and resells it to raise money for area nonprofits.

“When I stop and think of all that she has done and all the hard work, I think she was thinking of the people she was helping also,” said Kelly, who traveled a few times with Chase to far-flung places.

Her friend was all in with everything she did. “If she started something, she really put her whole heart into it,” Kelly said. “She always seemed to enjoy everything she did. Even though it was hard work, it was not hardship for Elaine. She liked pushing herself.”

Kelly’s travels with Chase included a trip to Thailand where they rode an elephant together and another trip to England, Wales and Scotland.

“We had a fabulous time because she was always interested in a variety of things from the history to the (food) and the new friends we met,” Kelly said. “She was a super, super lady, very friendly and outgoing and always so much fun.”

Travel was a passion for Chase and after retirement she booked tours all over the world. “She saw so many countries,” Phillips said.

Upon her return, Chase would compile a detailed album with photos and other items she collected on her trips.

“She loved to explore and made these incredible albums about every place she went,” Hamblet said. “She got such joy creating them after every trip.”

At home, Chase volunteered for the North Pomfret Congregational Church, sewing quilts for charity, co-chairing the annual Strawberry Supper, working on the annual church auction and taking care of the flowers on the church grounds. She held several positions at the church, including trustee and deaconess.

“Elaine was a very generous person with the church,” said fellow parishioner Herb Hohl. “If there was something the trustees were proposing, Elaine always wanted to know the details. She wanted to be sure the church was doing the right thing for the church members and the church itself.”

In her later years, Chase continued to help with the Strawberry Supper preparation.

“She would come in and join us peeling strawberries together,” Hohl said. “It was just a lot of fun. We only have good memories of Elaine. That was the kind of person she was.”

The Pomfret Historical Society was another volunteer effort where Chase gave her all.

“She was always there,” said fellow society member, John Leavitt. “She would go up to the ‘brick building’ on weekends or late at night and she would be checking records. She was really great for the historical society.”

Chase went on “tours” with Leavitt, looking for old roads or cellar holes and also interviewed longtime residents for the oral histories preserved by the society.

“She was really interested in keeping the history up and we really appreciated that,” Leavitt said.

Her mother thought the town’s history needed to be preserved and was happy to be doing it, Burns said. “She spent a lot of time going through the archives and building them up,” Burns said. “It was important to her to document the history so future generations would know about Pomfret.”

She also thought it was important to remember others’ personal milestones. In a time when text messages or social media posts are considered thoughtful birthday greetings, Chase would send cards and handwritten notes with get-well wishes, wedding congratulations and much more.

“She never forgot anyone’s birthday,” Phillips said. “Every child, grandchild, great grandchild, friend and relative got a birthday, anniversary, graduation card.”

Chase often included a personal note with her baked goods or flowers.

“She might write, ‘I’m thinking of you and wanted to touch base.’ She had us helping her do that right up until the very end,” Phillips said. “She would dictate the words to us, we would write it all down and she would sign them. If someone had surgery or a neighbor’s kid graduated, she would say ‘please pick up a card. We need to send them a card.’ She just did not want to stop.”

Chase’s daughters recalled their mother’s love of her husband and children and her thoughtfulness that extended beyond children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to include friends in the community or someone she only knew briefly or maybe didn’t know at all but wanted to help.

“She definitely taught us kindness and being aware when others were having hardships,” Burns said. “She was a very generous person and thoughtful.”

When the family brought in caregivers for their mother, Chase gave them flowers from her garden. Hamblet remembers her mother asking her to cut some flowers from the garden and the two would drive over to the house of one of her caregivers in North Pomfret to deliver them.

“She loved having a beautiful perennial garden, That was really her outlet,” Hamblet said. “She loved to cultivate them, collect them and she loved to share them. She was very happy to divide what she had and let someone else have the joy of a plant.”

Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.