Rebecca A. Ward, 66

Rebecca A. Ward, 66, of North Haven, passed away Saturday, Nov. 24, 2012 at the Connecticut Hospice in Branford.

Born in New Haven on Oct. 16, 1946, she was the daughter of Rita Musico Ward and the late Roy Ward Jr. of North Haven.

Miss Ward was a popular and dynamic teacher spending her entire professional career at Hamden High School where she taught Spanish for 33 years before retiring.

Rebecca earned a BS ('69) and MS ('77) in Spanish from Southern Connecticut State University, to whom she has bequeathed funds to establish "The Rebecca Ward 1969 Scholarship Fund" to help future Spanish teachers learn the craft.

While at Southern, Rebecca was selected to participate in the prestigious Experiment in International Living, where she spent a summer living with a Spanish family in Avila, Spain, studying at a local university, and traveling around the country. It was this experience that solidified her love of teaching and of all things "Spain."

She returned to Spain many times through the years to study at The University of Madrid, and to visit her family. Miss Ward remained a member of her Spanish family up until the day of her death.

Immediately after graduating with her BS degree in 1970, she won a scholarship with the U.S. State Department to teach English at the university level in Colombia, South America, first in Bogota and then in Bucaramanga.

Upon returning to Connecticut, her extraordinary experience and expertise in the language was recognized by the Hamden School System, where she was offered a position in the Spanish Department at Hamden High School, where she remained the rest of her career.

Miss Ward was a longtime and devoted parishioner of St. Thomas More Chapel at Yale in New Haven, where she volunteered in the soup kitchen, was a Eucharist Minister and the Chapel's Sacristan.

Besides her mother, she leaves a brother and sister-in-law, LeRoy and Patricia Fahey Ward, of New York City, and nieces Erin Ward of Denver, CO, and Caroline Ward of New York City.

Relatives and friends are invited to go directly to St. Thomas More Chapel, 268 Park St., New Haven, Wednesday morning at 10:00 for a mass of Christian burial and to attend interment services immediately following in All Saints Cemetery, North Haven.

Should friends desire, memorial contributions may be made to SCSU Foundation, 501 Crescent St., New Haven, CT.06515 or St. Thomas More Chapel at Yale, 268 Park Street, New Haven, CT. 06511  www.northhavenfuneral.com.