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Bermingham, who was known as Pam, was born on Sept. 19, 1927, in New York City to Anne McCrory Hinton and John Macrae, Jr.
She grew up in Scarsdale where she attended Edgemont Union Free School before graduating from Oldfields School, a private high school, in 1945.
She married Eldredge Langstaff Bermingham, who was known as Woolly, in 1950. The couple and their six children lived in Rye, then Sewickley, Pa., and finally South Londonderry, Vt.
Bermingham was an athlete who coached girls sports teams at Sewickley Academy.
She was a club champion in tennis and paddle tennis. As a young woman, she blitzed her way to the 1958 National Platform Tennis finals.
A year later, she introduced paddle tennis to western Pennsylvania, where she won many championships, including one while seven months pregnant.
She and her husband, who was also an athlete, were both inducted into the Platform Tennis Hall of Fame in 1996 and 1997.
Bermingham served on the boards of the Sewickley YMCA and the Sewickley Valley Hospital.
While in Vermont, she was an active member of the Londonderry Arts and Historical Society and the Green Mountain Gardeners.
Bermingham, a successful entrepreneur; established Blue Ribbon Prizes to move sporting competitions towards prizes that would carry lifelong meaning.
She was a founder and president of Mountain Valley Community Challenge, an organization that worked closely with the Vermont Land Trust, focusing on farm preservation and environmental stewardship.
She is survived by five children: Eldredge Jr., Stephen, Douglass, Ned and Jill; her brother, John Macrae III, 14 grandchildren and 14 nieces and nephews.
Bermingham was predeceased by her husband in 2004; her daughter, Anne Rutledge Bermingham, in 2009 and her sister, Jill Macrae Witherbee, in 1979.
A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 11, at the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, Lyme Street and Ferry Road, Old Lyme, Conn.
To share a memory or send condolences to her family, click here.
Funeral arrangements were handled by the Robinson, Wright & Weymer Funeral Home in Centerbrook, Conn.
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