Stephanie Pierce Schilling has returned to the sea she loved.

“She loved the ocean; that was where her center was,” said her good friend Carol Lorente.

Her brother, Carl Schilling, said that, as a child, she loved trips that their mother, Phyllis Schilling, took with her children — John, Carl, Lisa, and Stephanie — to visit Mrs. Schilling’s sister in Darien, Connecticut on the Long Island Sound.

“She loved the beauty of it — the animals, the glass she found, bicycling along,” Carl Schilling said of his sister’s visits to Long Island Sound. “It was a salve.”

The Schilling family lived in a Victorian house on Maple Avenue in Altamont. John N. Schilling Jr. was a lawyer and Phyllis Schilling, an avid gardener, was active in the community, serving as a village trustee.

Carl Schilling said of how the Schilling children were raised, “If we looked good, we were good.” Still, he said, there were “shards of joy” in family life.

The Schillings all enjoyed nature and spent time together hiking on 170 acres the family owned on Irish Hill in Berne. And, he said, “We had all kinds of animals — dogs, rabbits, fish, birds, cats. Everybody loved the animals.”

While Carl Schilling described his sister as “beautiful” and “a really good athlete,” he also said, “Being held back in first grade, Stephanie was wounded. She went on to get all those degrees to feel worthy.”

Ms. Schilling graduated from Guilderland High School in 1973, received a bachelor of arts degree from Cornell, a master of fine arts degree from Johns Hopkins, and in 1999 finished her education with a degree from Yale University as a registered nurse and nurse practitioner.

She became fast friends with Ms. Lorente in the 1980s when they both worked at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

“We worked in adjacent labs,” said Ms. Lorente, noting that Ms. Schilling eventually served as the maid of honor at her wedding.

“She was enthusiastic, warm, friendly,” said Ms. Lorente. “We did a lot of hiking together. We would hang out and just sort of talk about life.”

Ms. Schilling left her work as a lab technician to earn a master’s degree in medical illustrating from Johns Hopkins.

“She was a brilliant medical illustrator, truly outstanding,” said Ms. Lorente. “She’d do pictures of operations in the O.R. She did some work for me — she was just meticulous.”

Ms. Schilling later went on to Yale University to become a nurse practitioner. “She double boarded in medicine and psychiatry,” said Ms. Lorente, noting she practiced in several different places in Connecticut as well as in Oregon. “She found it fulfilling.”

Like her mother, “Stephanie was an incredible gardener,” Ms. Lorente said. She primarily grew vegetables and was “a very healthy eater and a great cook.” Her specialty was making soups, she said.

Ms. Schilling was a committed bicyclist, often riding in charity events. She rode in the Pan-Mass Challenge, Ms. Lorente said, cycling more than 100 miles to raise funds for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

“She was vibrant, engaged, thoughtful, athletic …,” said Ms. Lorente. “And she was incredibly loyal to her friends.”

Another one of her good friends was Gina Antonelli whom, her brother said, she met at the Guilford Free Library in Connecticut. “Gina was really very good with Steph as she was declining,” said Ms. Lorente.

“Her struggle with early onset dementia ended this late winter on February 20,” Carl Schilling wrote in a tribute. “She had been well cared for by the staff of Chestelm Health and Rehabilitation Center in Moodus, Connecticut.

“Especially helpful were the consistent efforts of Marie Sola and Nancy Condon with their caring attention and keeping family and friends fully informed of Steff's health in a most compassionate and honest manner.

“Without the financial support of the state of Connecticut and the federal Social Security Trust Fund her family would not have afforded her care and shelter. Thank you, Connecticut and FDR. We should all protect the laws and taxes which create this financial support.

“On a very cold and windy winter's afternoon, Gina, Carol, and Carl released Steff's remains into the white-capped Connecticut River. Her white ashes blew parallel to the water for a long way before settling into its current, taking her to a place she enjoyed deeply, the salty water of the Sound of Long Island.”

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A casual gathering and meal is planned for the last Saturday afternoon of this month, June 28. To attend, please call Carl Schilling for the final details of time and place.

“Peace Steff,” the tribute concluded.

— Melissa Hale-Spencer