Joan Tweedy, conservation-focused philanthropist, dies at 100

Joan Tweedy, a Fairfield County-based philanthropist who served as a financial benefactor for conservation nonprofits in New York and Connecticut, died at the age of 100 on Dec. 22 at her home in Darien.

Tweedy was best known for her support of the Wildlife Conservation Society, endowing the Joan L. Tweedy Chair in Conservation Strategy. Since 2006, she was a life trustee of the organization. She also endowed the Bronx Zoo”™s 6.5-acre Congo Gorilla Forest Exhibit, the Madagascar! Exhibit and the Giraffe Savannah. In Connecticut, her philanthropic involvement included New Haven”™s Nature Conservancy, the New Canaan Nature Center and the Darien Nature Center. Outside of her conservation work, she was a charter donor of the Kroon Hall building at the Yale University School of Environmental Studies and a longtime supporter of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England.

Tweedy was born Joan Ordway on Dec. 17, 1918, in St. Paul, Minnesota. She grew up in New York City, where she graduated from the Chapin School. In 1942, she married Robert C. Livingston, a member of the 1932 silver medal-winning U.S. Olympic hockey team who later served as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy in World War II and became president of International Instruments Inc., an electronic components manufacturer. He died in 1974. She married Richard Tweedy, a former director of the Stamford Hospital and president of the Stamford Bar Association, in 1982. Her second husband passed away in 2007.

A memorial service will be held at the First Presbyterian Church of New Canaan at 2 p.m.  on Jan. 26 with a reception to follow. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Wildlife Conservation Society.