Obituaries

She was born Leontine Felicity Gallahorn in Washington and at age 5 survived the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. She graduated from St. Cecilia's Academy. In her senior year, she won a singing competition that led to her singing and playing her ukulele on live radio in the Washington area for several years.

In her youth, she became a junior suffragette when her two older sisters took her to a rally in Washington to demand the vote for women a year before its 1920 passage into law, her family said.

During the Depression, she supported herself and her family for a time as a legal secretary after receiving a degree from the Washington School for Secretaries. The lawyer she worked for recognized her sharp mind and offered to pay her tuition to attend law school, which she declined because she found the work tedious.

Mrs. Tansill was a member of the Lioness Club and the Buckley Club, a youth-mentor program at St. Francis Xavier Parish. She sang with the Sweet Adelines and the Silver Bells. She was a member of the Red Hot Mamas of the Red Hat Society.

She also was a member of the Richard R. Clark Senior Center in La Plata and the 2-N-1 Club. She sang in various choirs at each church she joined throughout her lifetime.

Her marriage to Vincent P. Connolly ended in divorce. Her husband, William Tansill, died in 2002.

Survivors include, two children from her first marriage, Michael Connolly of White Plains and Patricia Connolly Seaman of Beltsville; seven grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.

-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb