Sarah Treat Parshley (Sally) died peacefully on September 5, 2020 at age 65 after a prolonged illness. She was the youngest of five children born to Paul C and Mary H Parshley and was raised in Glastonbury, Connecticut where she attended public schools and graduated from Glastonbury High School in 1973.
Sally always was a free spirit who loved to laugh and buck tradition. Her greatest joy and proudest accomplishment began in 2001 when she traveled to China to adopt her daughter Ellie. Sally always enjoyed travel, exercise, and outdoor activities such as wilderness hiking and skiing and Ellie quickly became her constant companion on those adventures.
Sally worked in the mental health field for most of her career. She earned an MS in Nursing and completed requirements to become a Psychiatric Clinical Specialist Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP), with a focus on children and adolescent mental health. She also passed the national certification test to become a Psychiatric Clinical Specialist. Sally worked many years for the State of Connecticut as a childcare worker and supervisor in a hospital setting for adolescent psychiatric patients. Later, she moved to New Mexico and worked as a nurse in a small-town hospital serving a predominantly Hispanic and Native American population.
In 1990 Sally moved to Portland, Oregon, to continue her mental health work at Cedar Hills Hospital and then the Providence Health System as an RN in the adult in-patient psychiatric unit. In the late 1990’s Sally began working for Reed College, an elite small liberal arts college in Portland. For more than ten years at Reed she held the titles of: Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, Clinical Coordinator/Training Director, Director of the Health and Counseling Center, and finally Associate to the Vice President & Dean of Students.
Sally is survived by her daughter Ellie Parshley and Michael Lombardo, Ellie’s adoptive father and Sally’s long-time companion in Portland, OR; her siblings Jane Parshley in Marblehead, MA; Martha Hunter in Chapel Hill, NC; Ann Heaney in Glastonbury, CT; and Paul Parshley and his wife Catherine O’Meara Parshley in Boston, MA.
A celebration of Sally’s life will occur at a later date. Memorial gifts in Sally’s honor can be made to “Running 4 Answers, a race against Alzheimer’s”, a 5k race and 2-mile fun run created to raise money for and awareness of Alzheimer’s disease. The proceeds from this annual event goes to Cure Alzheimer’s Fund. Alternatively, memorial gifts can be made in Sally’s honor directly to Cure Alzheimer’s Fund through the link below.