Yesterday’s New York Times featured a Page 1, top-of-the-fold story about a female Ukrainian soldier. It begins:
Just over a year ago, Yulia Bondarenko’s days were full of lesson plans, grading and her students’ seventh-grade hormones.
When Russian missiles shattered that routine and Russian troops threatened her home in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, Ms. Bondarenko, 30, volunteered to fight back, despite her lack of experience, the grave risk to her life and Ukraine’s apparently impossible odds.
“I never held a rifle in my hands and never even saw one up close,” Ms. Bondarenko said. “In the first two weeks, I felt like I was in a fog. It was just a constant nightmare.”
The harrowing text is accompanied by Lynsey Addario’s haunting photos. The 1991 Staples High School graduate — a Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur fellowship grant winner — made 5 trips to Ukraine last year.
She followed Bondarenko’s journey on four4 of them, reporting from the Kyiv, Kharkiv and Cherkasy regions.
Click here for the full story, and Lynsey’s powerful photographs.
Yulia Bondarenko learns how to use a rifle. (Photo/Lynsey Addario for the New York Times)
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Alert “06880” reader Gil Ghitelman is a fan of Mrs. London’s Bakery — to a limit. He writes:
“Mrs. London’s is a welcome addition to the Westport dining experience. While I miss the vibe engendered by Java at the same Church Lane location several years ago, their pastries, albeit pricey, are quite delicious.
“What I find disturbing is their 3.5% surcharge for credit card use. The only outfits (other than gas stations) that I’m aware of using this ploy are online gun dealers.
“Mrs. London’s is only shooting itself in the foot if they continue this practice.”
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Longtime Westporter Phyllis Makovsky died in her home, surrounded by her family, following an inspiring fight against leukemia. She was 80 years old.
The Queens native graduated from Barnard College with honors, and earned a master’s degree in teaching from Harvard University.
She was passionate in the classroom. She taught advanced math at the Brearley School in Manhattan and Great Neck South High School on Long Island, before turning her skills and compassion to her family, and through prominent roles in the community.
In 1972 Phyllis met Kenneth Makovsky. They married within months, and shared a partnership of 50 years. The couple enabled each other’s successes in business, at home and in their social and philanthropic lives. She served as a crucial strategic advisor to Ken as he built the public relations agency Makovsky & Company.
Phyllis was a doer. Her work came in many forms. She served Temple Israel as a board member for 10 years. She established a scholarship at Washington University in St. Louis dedicated to music. After her second diagnosis with breast cancer, she returned to Norwalk Hospital as a volunteer in the chemo-infusion center. She spent 20 years there — and returned to the same room for her final leukemia treatments. She was greeted with big hugs.
Phyllis used her talents as a teacher, and her combination of grace, grit and empathy, to make sure that her family could shine. As a friend and a sister she did the same. Phyllis was present, kind and insightful, and her love and good energy was returned to her by many.
Phyllis is survived by her husband Kenneth, sons Matt and Evan, and brother Stephen.
Funeral services will be held tomorrow (Tuesday, February 21, 1 p.m., Temple Israel). Burial will follow at 225 Richards Ave in Norwalk. Shiva will be observed at her Westport home tomorrow (Tuesday, February 21, post-service until 8 p.m.), and Wednesday and Thursday from 1 to 7 p.m..
To livestream the funeral service, please click here. Go to the YouTube page; it will be the first “live” video listing for the day. To share a condolence message, click here. Memorial contributions may be made to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
(Phyllis Makovsky was the subject of a song written by her son Matt. Click here for that story, posted last Friday on “06880.”)
Phyllis Makovsky
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We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: There’s nature all over Westport, including the heart of downtown.
Claudia Sherwood Servidio captured this “Westport … Naturally” scene, just a few feet from the Parker Harding Plaza pavement.
(Photo/Claudia Sherwood Servidio)
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And finally … speaking of Mrs. London’s pie’s: Does she know Mrs. Wagner?
(“06880” is “where Westport meets the world (including America).” Please click here to support our work. Thank you!)
