Cynthia Joy Muller Sepe

This obituary is through the lens of Cynthia’s youngest of 6, and not meant to be definitive, other versions are welcomed. Cynthia was born in Bronxville, NY to Helen White. Her father was allegedly, William Brown and she was named Isabel White at birth. This was the information we found on her actual birth certificate, which we were only able to get in 2020, after waiting for years for legislation that would allow it. The names seem unlikely, but it’s all we have. Cynthia was adopted by her parents, Henry R. and Rhoda W. Muller, in the spring of 1931. They raised her in Darien, CT until she was a teenager. They then moved to Red Oaks Mill, NY, where she finished high school (Arlington HS) and then attended Bennet College in Millbrook, NY, where she completed an AA in dramatic arts and met her husband of 69 years, Louis P. Sepe (Gigi, Sep, Lou). They married in 1951, moved to Brooklyn, back upstate NY and eventually settled in CT, at first living with her recently widowed mother on Oriole Lane, where they had their 5th child and, then moving to Casement St, in 1960, where I was born two years later, the 6th and last. She lived in that house on Casement St in Darien until this year.

 During her time in Darien she raised her kids, volunteered at the schools, worked for several friends in their small businesses, babysat, cleaned houses, washed windows, protested the Vietnam war, ran an Imported Italian food store in Stamford (Yanelli’s), wallpapered her entire house, cooked, cleaned, sewed (she once was commissioned to make the winter wool habits for the nuns who lived at the convent on Long Neck Point in Darien), knitted and tore down a barn in the back yard with the help of her kids. She made a vegetable garden in the place where that barn had stood. Oh, and she was the crossing guard on Noroton Ave at Clock Ave for 31 years. Starting in her late 50’s, she returned to her first love, acting, participating in many an amateur production of plays, musicals, and films around Fairfield County and NYC. Three Tall Women, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All, The Sound of Music, Rope, Arsenic and Old Lace, and several productions of Driving Miss Daisy are just a few of the plays she appeared in over the years. She can be seen on occasion on the History Channel in a production about the haunted Merchant House in NYC, playing the ghost that haunts it to this day, according to witnesses. Cynthia eventually grew old in the house on Casement, though, sadly, she did not get to die there, as she had always wished. She was cared for meticulously and with love, by Paulet Adams, for several years there. Those of us who helped care for Mom will forever be indebted to Paulet (and Matilda). It was an honor for me, personally, to work with Paulet to keep Mom as healthy as she could be in her later years, and to forge a deep love and friendship through that often taxing work. People often commented on Mom’s amazing skin, well into her 90’s. Thanks, P.

 Cynthia is the mother of Michael Sepe (d. 4/28/2024), Christopher Seppe (d. 12/16/1989),

Victoria Zebrower, Suzanne Sepe, Anthony Sepe and Melissa Sepe Chepuru; mother-in-law to

Audrey Sepe, Michael Zebrower, David Crouse, Richard Glendon, Susan Rizzo, Tish Anagnos, and Giri Chepuru; grandmother to Christina Sepe, Sam and Gabe (Johna) Zebrower, Archie Crouse, Fred (Asha) Rizzo, Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru and Narain Chepuru; step-grandmother to Shilpa Chepuru (Tom Prothero), and great-grandmother to Nora and Max Rizzo and Sebastian and Sienna Prothero. She was pre-deceased by her husband, Sep, on 12/17/2020. She leaves behind dear friends Pat, Dieter, Nanette and Melina Bruhn, Matt and Carol Cohen and Martha Perske. She also leaves behind her brother-in-law, Victor “Vic” Sepe, and sister-in-law Rosemary “Rosie” Nielsen, many nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and nephews and several friends through her children. 

 Family and close friends gathered on December 20th in White Plains, NY to celebrate her life. If you’d like to give to a charity of your choosing in her name, she and my Dad gave to St. Jude’s and Children’s International, feel free to give to one dear to you. May she rest in peace, hopefully cooking up some sauce with Sep and Aunt Doreen in the great kitchen in the sky. If there is an afterparty, there are some amazing folks in attendance.