Leyden, MA – Marie Madeleine Gens, of Leyden, Massachusetts, died peacefully at home on September 11, 2026, surrounded by her family and looking out over the fields and barns she loved so dearly. She was 79. Madeleine was born in New York City on February 27, 1947, to Gerard Fox and Suzanne Hertzmann. As a small child she and her brother John were taken to live in Lourmarin, a village in the south of France. At the age of seven she returned to the United States and was raised in Meriden, Connecticut, where she made the friends who would stay with her for the rest of her life, right up to her final days.
Madeleine never stopped learning. Though she did not finish a formal degree, she took courses all her life, driven by a curiosity that never quieted, and a summer at the Rhode Island School of Design brought her artistic gifts fully into focus. Over the years she was a model, a movie theater manager, a stained glass designer, a framer, a saleswoman, a tofu cookbook author, a chef, a caterer, an antique dealer, a landscape designer and an interior designer. Each was its own era, and she excelled at every one of them. She met the love of her life, Tim Gens, on the dance floor of the Hot Tin Roof on Martha’s Vineyard. They married in June of 1984 and raised their family in the Boston area over 34 years together. After Tim’s passing in 2018, Madeleine found her way back to Western Massachusetts, to the community in the Valley she had first found in her twenties, the place that had always let her feel like her most authentic self. She settled into a farmhouse in Leyden that she always said was Tim’s last gift to her, a soft place to land after the heartbreak of losing him.
In Leyden she built the life she had always wanted. Her days were full of gardening, swimming with friends, tai chi, print-making, and canning jars of the most delicious jams, salsas and chutneys anyone had ever tasted. She served with the Council on Aging, preparing monthly luncheons for her neighbors, and helped bring performances and lectures to town through the Leyden Cultural Council. Madeleine was not one to sit still, and her goal every single day was to bring a little more beauty and a little more love into the world. For all her talents, her greatest gift was giving. She shared the food she spent hours preparing, shared her deep knowledge of art and design, and above all shared herself. She started a meal train for families in crisis, showed up at rallies to speak against injustice, and opened her doors to anyone who needed support or a place to call home. Her invitation never had an end date. You could stay until you were back on your feet, and many did. She had only been in Leyden a handful of years, but the town took her in from the start, and the friends and neighbors who surrounded her in her final weeks showed her extraordinary love, compassion and generosity. Her family will always be grateful to this community for the kindness they showed their mother.
Madeleine is survived by her three children, Jamie Langley, Kathleen Gens and Dylan Gens; their spouses, Merrill Langley, Will Fowkes and Hannah Gens; her beloved grandchildren, Catherine, Merrill Jr., Charlie and Clementine; her dear nephew, Todd Pavelkops; and Elizabeth Diebold, who came into her life as a friend and stayed as a daughter. She was predeceased by her husband, Tim, and her brother, John Michael Fox. At Madeleine’s request there will be no formal funeral. A celebration of her life will be held at her home in Leyden at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in her memory to The Literacy Project or the Wounded Warrior Project.
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