Sheila Anastas

Sheila Marie Anastas, beloved wife of Lawrence J. Garstka and mother of Robert D. Garstka, died Friday, May 31, 2024 at Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut. She was born in 1949 to the late John Alexander and Ruth Payton Anastas in Topeka, Shawnee, Kansas.

In 1957, her family moved to Mobile, Alabama, when her father was transferred as civilian support to Brookley AFB.

Being a northerner during the turbulent Civil Rights era left a lasting impression. Sheila was lined up and mock machine-gunned by some of the older elementary school children at recess. She saw KKK crosses burned in downtown Mobile.

While in 8th grade, Sheila passed a series of bandsman tests to play clarinet in the W.P. Davidson Sr. High School marching band, under the direction of Lacey E. Powell; president of the Alabama Bandmasters Association and a former U.S. Army band member. The band performed precision drill and marched at halftime for home football games, playing music from memory at Ladd Stadium, home of the Senior Bowl.

In 1963, Sheila’s family moved to the Washington, D.C. area, where her father worked for the General Services Administration (GSA). She lived in Springfield, Virginia for a year, attending Annandale High School. As a member of the AHS band, Sheila played at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York, and marched in the Washington D.C. Cherry Blossom and Winchester, Va., Apple Blossom parades. Sheila remembered being in a 9th grade Spanish class when news of President Kennedy’s assassination was announced over the loudspeaker. Her teacher, who was of Cuban descent, put his fist through the blackboard. The students were told to go to their final class of the day and wait for buses to take them home. No one said anything, but some of the girls were crying in 5th period algebra class. For three days, her family sat glued to the TV, watching the news and funeral. It seemed nothing was ever going to be the same again.

After moving to Sterling Park, Virginia, the following year, Sheila attended Loudoun County High School in Leesburg from 1964 to 1967. Route 7 was only two lanes. At times, the school bus would have to slow down on the way because the riders in the Middleburg Hunt Club mounted on their horses, complete with red coats and hounds, would be crossing the “jumps” on either side of the highway in pursuit of a fox. Likewise, farm kids would be picked up along the route, still smelling with the slight aroma of pigs, which they likely just fed before catching the bus.

After high school, Sheila attended Benjamin Franklin University (BFU) in Washington, D.C. BFU supplied 20% of accountants for the federal government at the time. The school later merged with George Washington University. BFU was located across from the now former site of the Russian Embassy, and she often wondered how many “students” weren’t really students. At that time, very few women attended business schools. Once, when Sheila and another female student went down to the study room, and before they sat down, one of the many male students said, “If you are looking for a husband, don’t come here.”

With that hostile environment, she usually studied in parks or government building libraries like the Department of the Interior or G.S.A. Her parents had loaned her money to attend college at interest, and she drove into D.C. each day with her father’s carpool and had to be at the parking lot in time to make the 2-3 hour drive home to Virginia each day.

Tired of the long drive and traffic, when she received her A.B.A degree, Sheila opted to work nearer home. In 1969, she was hired by the Participating Life insurance Company (PALIC), out of Little Rock, Ark. The company had offices in McLean, and later, in Falls Church, Virginia. Even though she had an accounting degree, she was told that she couldn’t be in a management training program because she hadn’t served four years in the military. Consequently, Sheila had to train veterans who formerly repossessed cars in NYC, for example, but who qualified to be management trainees. Eventually, the man responsible for preparation of the financial statements left, and the accounting manager asked Sheila if she would like the position.

The PALIC company founder looked like “Colonel Sanders;” however he had sold the controlling interest to Aetna Life and Casualty at a future effective date. With the founder being a Southerner, human resources found that it was difficult to comply with the minority employment quotas, with him still in residence on the 6th floor of the office building. He liked to come down the back stairs to pop in on his employees. HR worked out a system with his secretary; when the founder left for the back stairs, the secretary would call HR, who would call the supervisor of any minority employee, and they would hide that employee until the founder had left the area. The records file clerk was a minority woman, and operated a big revolving file (this was the days before computers). Unbelievable today, but when given the signal, her supervisor would put her in a closet when the founder came on the floor. Sometimes it would happen so fast that Sheila would see a vacant chair with the revolving file still spinning!

When women became pregnant, they could only work until they began to “show.” Some of the most capable employees had to resign because of this. Slacks were another revolution. The first woman who came to work in slacks was sent home.

In 1972, Aetna Life and Casualty gained 100% interest in its subsidiary, and moved PALIC to its headquarters at 151 Farmington Ave. in Hartford, Connecticut. Its name was eventually changed to Aetna Variable Annuity Company. The company, desirous of continuity, asked most employees if they would like to move the Hartford. Being single and wanting to experience New England, Sheila agreed to the transfer. She received a promotion, which included additional responsibility for the company’s investment accounting unit. Sheila became the first woman in Palic to achieve the sub-officer; administrator, level. When her promotion was announced, all the women on her floor stood up and clapped.

Sheila met her future husband, Larry, at the offices of her employer. They were married in 1982. Sheila took advantage of Aetna’s education benefits, and attending night school, earned a BSBA in Business Administration and a Master of Science in Professional Accounting from the University of Hartford. Sheila was also a Fellow, Life Office Management Institute. Over her 22-year career at Aetna, achieving accounting manager and director levels, Sheila managed units responsible for consolidated financial reporting for Aetna Life and Casualty and its foreign subsidiaries; both SEC, Convention Blank, and management reporting, fixed asset accounting, and agency and expense accounting. She also designed and developed a general ledger accounting system for PALIC, and headed fixed asset and divisional financial accounting system design for Aetna.

In 1991, Sheila left Aetna. Over the next years, she was Controller for Colonial Realty, working solely under the Bankruptcy Trustee and with a national forensic accounting firm. Colonial initiated an infamous Ponzi scheme that rocked New England at the time, so much that the offices were unmarked on an unmarked floor of a building in downtown Hartford, and at times guarded by federal marshals. She was also later at various times the administrator for the law firm Siegal, O’Connor, Schiff, and Zangari; controller for TPA Books (a college bookstore) and Chabaso Bakery; acting controller of the University of New Haven; all while sole proprietor of SM Anastas & Associates, Inc., a crisis management consulting firm. During this period, Sheila also implemented a tax accounting system for International Aero Engines, a division of Pratt & Whitney, in East Hartford, Conn.

In 1997, Sheila was asked to become director of administration and controller of Science Park Development Corporation; a consortium of Yale University, the City of New Haven, Olin Corporation, and the office of the Governor of Connecticut to redevelop the abandoned, multi-acre, former Winchester Rifle Factory Complex in New Haven for life sciences and residential purposes. Only after accepting, did she learn that three others had refused the position in the rough intercity neighborhood, being afraid they would be shot.

She remained there 17 years, until her 2014 retirement, acting as liaison between the tenant companies, various state and city agencies, and the all-volunteer board of directors, whose presidents included a Yale University Sterling Chair of Microbiology, a retired president and chairman of CT Light and Power Company (CL&P), and a president of Southern New England Water Company. Her proudest moment was when one of the corporate directors of Science Park Development Corporation — a principal officer of Yale Corporation and the vice president of Yale City and State Affairs, told her at her retirement gathering, that she “had saved Science Park.”

Sheila’s greatest joy, in addition to her travel to five continents, was genealogy and DNA research. It was Sheila’s strong belief that one needs to know history to know thyself. Her maternal ancestors, among others, entered Virginia through Jamestown fleeing from the restoration of the monarchy after Cromwell; entered Virginia as a kidnapped Swede whose indenture was sold to a tobacco plantation; entered Plymouth, Massachusetts on the last pilgrim ship, the Handmaiden; entered Pennsylvania with William Penn in the 1600s as his brewmaster; and once owned land that now encompasses the Yale University quadrangle in New Haven, Conn.

Her mother’s family traveled westward over the generations to Kansas. Her great-great-great uncle was the first governor of Nebraska, and she was distantly related to such individuals as Winston Churchill, Chief Justice John Marshall, Buffalo Bill Cody, John Fremont, and Daniel Boone. Her paternal ancestors were predominately from Westphalia, where 3rd cousins still own the family farm, Hesse in Germany, and Rovia in the Peloponnese in Greece where 2nd cousins live. In addition to her own research, Sheila participated over the years in research for four genealogical publications; Henry Hayes 1705-2005, the Wickersham family in America, the Peytons of Virginia II, and The History of Covalt’s Station (an account of a 1791 Indian massacre in present day Terrace Park, Ohio). Sheila was also an executive committee member and designer and webmaster for The Peyton Society of Virginia. She was a contributor to Findagrave.com, setting up family grave memorials all over the country, as well as linking individuals to relatives buried in various cemeteries. Sheila also enjoyed pierogi fund raising activities at St. Mary of Czestochowa Roman Catholic Church in Middletown. She was a member of 22 parishes in four states during her life. Despite the many Christian religions and off-shoots that came to be practiced or created by her various ancestors, Sheila believed their original religion, Roman Catholic, was the only true one — by logic and historical fact.

Sheila leaves her beloved husband, Larry Garstka; son and daughter-in-law, Robert and Alicia Garstka; and grandchildren Jackson and Lila. Additionally, she leaves her sister, Michele Anastas Cooley of Stephens City, Va.; and brothers and sisters-in-law Fred and Suzie Garstka of Calabash, N.C., and Stanley and Janet Garstka of Cheshire, Conn; four nieces and nephews, and numerous cousins. She was predeceased by her brother-in-law, Robert Cooley. In addition to her family, she leaves her penpal of 60-plus years, Elaine Cowie of Larne, Northern Ireland, and the children of her late penpal, Ranji Da Silva of Colombo, Sri Lanka, to whom she is with pride referred to as “Auntie.”

A Funeral Liturgy is at 11 a.m. at St. Mary of Czestochowa in Middletown on Wednesday.Burial will be at St. Stanislaus Cemetery in Meriden, Conn. Biega Funeral Home, 3 Silver St., Middletown, Conn., is in charge of arrangements.

In lieu of flowers, please send all contributions of condolence to the benefit of Friends of the Caleb Pusey House, Inc., 15 Race St., P.O. Box 1183, Upland, Pa., 19015-1183 to support maintenance and preservation of the only existing house in Pennsylvania that William Penn was known to visit, and one of Sheila’s family ancestral homes. To share memories or express condolences online please visit www.biegafuneralhome.com.