Gabriela Joyce O’Leary

NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. – Gabriela Joyce O’Leary, 39, an educator, advocate, and beloved friend and caretaker to many, passed away on Oct. 28, 2023. She was surrounded by family and friends after a short but difficult battle with cancer.

Born on Sept. 24, 1984, in Portland, Gabriela was the daughter of the late Ambassador and Portland Mayor John J. O’Leary, and the late Patricia Cepeda, an interpreter and translator. She grew up in Portland until her father was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Chile, where she lived from 1998 until 2001. She then moved with her parents to Washington, D.C., where she graduated from Maret School as valedictorian in 2003. Most summers throughout her life she returned to her beloved family home on Little Diamond Island in Portland.

Gabriela attended college at Brown University, graduating summa cum laude in 2007 with a degree in Comparative Literature and Latin American Studies. She studied abroad in Brazil, where she later lived on a Fulbright Scholarship, and had a lifelong love of Brazilian culture, along with that of her mother’s native Colombia and Latin America as a whole.

Since 2009, Gabriela and her partner, Ben Gottlieb, had lived mostly in New York City, N.Y., first in Staten Island and then in Manhattan. She held a series of positions teaching English as a second language, adult education, and arts education at Make the Road New York, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, and the Museum of Modern Art, among other institutions. She also taught in the Language Immersion Program at CUNY’s Bronx Community College. From 2011 to 2013 Gabriela lived in D.C., caring for her mother before her death from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the disease which had also taken her father’s life in 2005.

Gabriela was a great lover of art, literature, and languages, and a skilled photographer. She worked to make museums more accessible to children and people with disabilities and to advance justice and opportunity for immigrants. She was a deeply compassionate and thoughtful daughter, sister, partner, mother, aunt and friend to many, maintaining strong and loving friendships for decades with friends across the country and globe. She brought a seriousness of purpose to everything that was important to her and could also unleash her playful humor in an hours-long text chat. To know Gabriela was to care for her and be cared for by her. Her smile and her warmth lit up tiny New York apartments and entire art museums.

Gabriela’s last months were spent nurturing her new baby Camilo, who was born in May, even as she was going through cancer treatment. She cared for the people around her even in the most difficult circumstances. Her boundless love inspired her family, friends, and even those who just met her briefly.

Gabriela is survived by her partner, Ben Gottlieb, and their son, Camilo Joyce Gottlieb of New York City, N.Y. She is also survived by her sister, Alejandra O’Leary Dafoe, and her husband, Jack Dafoe, of Freeport; her niece and nephew, Tom Dafoe and Ursula Dafoe, of Freeport; her grandmother, Teresa Cepeda of Barranquilla, Colombia; her partner’s parents, Martin Gottlieb and Janet Graham Gottlieb of New York City, N.Y.; her partner’s brother and sister-in-law, Graham Gottlieb and Noemie Levy of Boston, Mass.; many loving uncles, aunts, and cousins; and her beloved and lifelong friends.

A celebration of Gabriela’s life will be held in Maine in the summer of 2024.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Make the Road New York (maketheroadny.org) or The Dinner Party (thedinnerparty.org).