AMHERST, MA – Joanne Dunn Parker, 91, of Easthampton, died in her sleep on Sunday, September 2 following a long illness. She was born Joanne Elizabeth Dunn on June 21, 1927 in Seattle, WA, the daughter of John Joseph Dunn and Wilhelmina Hinckel Dunn. Wife of the late Robert George Parker of Rocky Hill, CT, she was formerly the wife of the late Frank Middleton Woolner of Shrewsbury.

Joanne is survived by her daughter, Leslie Woolner Bardsley, and granddaughter, Alexandra Middleton Woolner, both of Easthampton; several nieces and nephews; her husband’s children, Robert G. Parker, Jr., of Northport, NY, Virginia D. Parker, of Winder, GA, Steven J. Parker, of Venice, FL, and Wells C. Parker, of North Port, FL; and from a prior marriage, Beth and Michael Underwood of Marion and Mattapoisett, MA; and a lifelong friend, Sally Satterberg Cahill Brookbank, of  Friday Harbor, WA.

Joanne was predeceased by her brothers, John P. Dunn of Chatham and West Boylston, MA, and Jay W. Dunn of Meredith, NH.

In Seattle, Joanne attended Broadway High School and St. Nicholas School for Girls, and graduated from Shrewsbury [MA] High School in 1944. She attended Worcester Art Museum School.

Joanne was a licensed real estate broker in Connecticut. As she moved with her family, she became a personnel placement counselor in Hartford, a fashion model in the New York area, and in Boston an electronics firm expediter, a commercial painting estimator, and a general construction estimator.

During her marriage to Bob Parker, Joanne was an architectural construction estimator for the Public Works Department, State of Connecticut, notably one of only three female estimators in the state at the time of her hire in the 1970s. After her retirement, her interest in design led her to Blacklion, an interior design center, as its greeter and concierge. Joanne loved the arts as a spectator and a participant, particularly in dance, theatre, and applied art. She has written a memoir; she was a member of American Mensa, a volunteer at the Westborough Senior Center, a member/volunteer of Worcester Art Museum, and an election officer for the Town of Westborough.

While living in Seattle in the early 1990s, Joanne was a reservist with FEMA Region 10 and, following earthquakes in California and typhoon Omar in Guam, served on teams in those locations securing accommodations for the homeless.  

Joanne has offered her remains to assist in extending lives of those afflicted with reparable health problems, or for educational purposes. In lieu of flowers, please make donations in her memory to support Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials research at the Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Center. Checks should be made out to “Trustees of Boston University,” with “Clinical Research in Neurodegenerative Disease Fund” in the memo line. Checks should be mailed to Nicole Gullotti, BU ADC, BU School of Medicine, 72 East Concord Street, B7800, Boston, MA 02118.

A memorial in celebration of her life is being planned by her family.

Helga Z. (Zinsmeister) Ragle, 76, passed away peacefully on August 27, 2018 in Hadley, surrounded by her family and friends following an extended illness.  Born in September, 1942 in Lorrach, Germany.  Helga emigrated to the US in 1969 and became a US citizen in 1975.   After a brief stay in Albany, New York to be with her family she spent a year in Vancouver, British Columbia, and in 1972 moved to Amherst, MA.  She then moved to Belchertown where she has lived since 2003. She starting working at the University of Massachusetts Department of Mechanical Engineering as Head Clerk. In 1975 worked as a shorthand reporter in Western Massachusetts until she retired in 2013.  After a breast cancer diagnosis in 1999 and a year spent in radiation and chemo Helga was told she had a one-year life expectancy.  Helga resolved to fulfill her dream of traveling to distant locations across the globe to pursue her passion of hiking and discovery of new cultures.  Helga and her son Jeffrey began to explore the United States by backpacking and hiking the many iconic and hidden wonders of the west including the Grand Tetons, Sierra Nevadas, Northern Cascades, Canadian and Colorado Rockies, and numerous National Parks in the Southwest US.  She also hiked many of the world’s treasures including trekking in Patagonia, Peru, Nepal, India, Chile, Bulgaria, Morocco and the European Alps. Her passion for hiking remained high even at home where she hiked every day with her dogs, Tigger, Granite, and Toby in the Holyoke Range, The White Mountains of New Hampshire, and many other New England peaks.  Helga has completed hiking all 4000-foot mountains in the White Mountains – twice.  Helga was an Appalachian Mountain Club Trip Leader and lead many hiking and cross-country skiing trips for friends, neighbors, and AMC members to New England natural areas including Mount Lincoln, Mount Monadnock, and Mount Greylock.  While at home and between trips she was often seen with her dogs in the Amethyst Brook Natural Area.  Helga was also an active tennis player and played with many teams in the local United States Tennis League Chapter and Hampshire Women’s Tennis League.  A member of the South Amherst Congregational Church, Helga sang in its choir and greatly enjoyed the fellowship that provided.  Helga was a member of the Belchertown Land Trust and was passionate about conserving the quality of life that the Town of Belchertown is well known for.  Helga also volunteered her services to the Holyoke Soldiers Home Hospice and Northampton Soup Kitchen.  She was a great friend to her neighbors in Amherst and Belchertown and will be sorely missed by them.  Helga lived for 19 years after her first (and subsequent recurring metastatic breast cancer diagnosis in 1999).  She has been a model for many on how to deal with life’s challenges.  Helga leaves behind her son Jeffrey who now lives with his wife Mirjam in Steinen, Germany where Helga grew up. A Memorial Service will be held Saturday September 15^th, 2018; 10:00am at the South Congregational Church, South Amherst MA.

Norman Herbert Campbell passed away peacefully on Friday, August 31, 2018 after a brief illness. He was 90 years old.  Norm’s two goals later in life were to hit the milestone of 90 and to remain in his beloved West Street home; he was most satisfied to have accomplished both.  Norm was predeceased by his wife, Edith in 2004, and by his brother Paul Jr. In 2014, and several loving uncles, aunts, sisters and brothers-in-law, and cousins. 

Norman was born in Pelham, MA on March 25, 1928, the third son of Paul and Helen (Ward) Campbell.  He graduated from Amherst Regional High School in 1946 and soon thereafter, began his life-long career at the University of Massachusetts.  He began working as a painter in the Physical Plant and for forty two years, he continued to develop his professional status, retiring as a Director of Special Projects.  Norm took great pride in his work maintaining and improving the buildings at the University and he loved overseeing the progress of different projects.  Retiring in 1988, he pursued an active life, enjoying time with his family, his hobbies and his many friends.   

Growing up in Pelham, Norm was an avid sportsman who loved to fish and hunt in the streams, hills and valleys of Western MA.  These were life-long passions that gave him great pleasure.  He was a member of the Norwottock Fish and Game Club and a Past President and Treasurer of the Pelham Hunting Club.  Though not a veteran himself, he revered those who served our country and was an auxiliary member of the American Legion in Amherst and the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Amherst.  He also belonged to the Young Men’s Club in Hadley.  Norm was proud to be a member of The Woodlot Gang on Mount Lincoln in Pelham where he regularly spent quality time with dear friends.   Norm loved to golf and for many years post-retirement, he could be found in the early mornings with his golfing partners at the Cherry Hill Club or the Mill Valley Club.   

Norman met the love of his life at the end of high school and in 1950, he married Edith Mae McKemmie of South Amherst, to whom he was married for 54 happy years.  Norm leaves two children, James Hardy Campbell of Amherst and Norma Mae Campbell of Sunderland, three grandchildren:  Daniel Campbell of Holyoke, MA, Chelsea McKenna of Charleston, South Carolina, and Brennan McKenna of Sunderland MA.  He also leaves his treasured great-granddaughter, Harper Grace Fredericks, who resides with her parents in Charleston.  Norm also leaves behind his cherished brother Roland and sister-in-law Alice of Pelham, MA, sisters-in-law Louise Micka, Barbara Jacque, Virginia Downie, Audrey McKemmie, and Kay McKemmie, and many, many beloved neices, nephews, and cousins, too numerous to mention.   

Calling hours will be at the Douglass Funeral Home in Amherst from 4-7 on Tuesday September 4, 2018. Funeral services will be at the South Congregational Church in Amherst at 10am on Wednesday, followed by burial in the Pelham Valley Cemetery.  Should you desire, contributions in Norm’s name can be made to the Cooley Dickinson Hospital/VNA-Hospice, who provided exceptional end of life care to him.  

Belchertown, Beverly Louise Geoffrey, 78, of Belchertown died peacefully in her sleep on August 17, 2018 at Cooley Dickinson Hospital. Beverly was born in Amherst, November 30, 1939 to the late Raymond S. and Arlene {Struthers} Powers. She graduated from Amherst High School and worked for many years as a legal secretary at various firms in Northampton. She also worked as a sales clerk at Steigers, Lord and Taylor and J.C. Penney’s. She loved animals, especially cats and had many throughout her life. She enjoyed the beach, gardening, shopping, decorating for the holidays and being with friends and family. She was dearly loved by all her acquaintances. Beverly was predeceased by the love of her life, Jean Stroh. She is survived by her brother Raymond S. Powers of PA., and his children, Michael, Christine and Edwin. She is also survived by her son Mark Allen Geoffrey, of Amherst, her daughter Sherri and husband James White of Turners Falls and her grandchildren, Andrea, Aaron and Jaimee.

The family wishes to thank Beverly’s close friends who were always there for her.

In lieu of flowers donations may be made to Greenfield Savings Bank, care of, Sherri White for Beverly Geoffrey to help with burial expenses.

Graveside funeral services will be held Friday August 24, 2018, 10:00 AM at the North Amherst Cemetery, Amherst.

Linda Patton (Sigrist) McLean was born on August 20, 1937 in Franklin, New Jersey, the only child of Beatrice (Moran) Sigrist, an early career-woman, a mild, hilarious, and meticulous mother, and David Sigrist, a self-made man, the tabletop-tapdancing owner of a Mercedes-Benz-Packard dealership, the son of recent German immigrants. They called her Cindy from the beginning. She grew up in Verona, New Jersey on Mallard Lane just up the street from a small lake with boats and ducks. It was the idyllic beginning of what she admitted was a fairytale life.

As a child, there is a famous story of Cindy driving to Yankee Stadium with her father to deliver a new Packard to a baseball star of the day. Later, she attended Verona High School then Mount Holyoke College, majored in Religion, and after a foreign exchange in Switzerland, graduated in 1959, followed by a degree at Columbia Teachers College. While at Mount Holyoke she met Marsh McLean on a blind date. She married this shy future doctor and current baseball star in 1961. She supported him through medical school as a teacher to the sixth-grade children of Chapel Hill professors. It was said the dean of the medical school threatened to flunk Marsh if he went off to Chicago with Cindy as planned. The kids could not do without this wonderful creative teacher with the electrifying smile.

She strolled their four kids around Chicago as Picasso erected his famous steel Horse downtown, as riots raged that year. She got free tickets for Marsh not only to the Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup but to sit with the owners in the sky box. They were picked up in the limo. She’d met the daughter of Blackhawk owner while doing laundry, had been offered tickets, but had no idea who the woman was. When Marsh and a friend froze the courtyard of the downtown Chicago apartment building, she tied the skates. She saw him off to Vietnam and back safe.

They moved to a huge beautiful house on Moss Avenue in Peoria, Illinois in 1971 where they built a tennis court in the back, froze the front for skating, dug gardens, vegetables for him, roses for her. They stayed for 45 years. There Cindy was committed to all manner of creative, political, community activity. She ran Broadway Theater League that brought acclaimed plays to town. She was an early member of the NAACP and Urban League and she worked for Planned Parenthood and the Peoria Park District. She was a decades-long leader of the Moss-Bradley Historical Society, but worked city-wide to save important buildings from the demolition, such as The Peoria GAR Hall where Lincoln-Douglass debates were heard before the Civil War. She championed the successful application of the McLean Farm in Sedalia, North Carolina to National Register of Historic Places, the work of many years. She rose to be president of the Illinois State Medical Auxiliary. In later years she crusaded for environmental causes. She and Marsh supplied a Peoria Area Food Bank every Tuesday for decades, hauling canned good and baby formula up and down stairs well into her 70s. They slept monthly in a homeless shelter in the basement of the Westminster Presbyterian Church down the street. The list of her civic work goes on, but her greatest commitment was always to Marsh and their four daughters.

She died on August 15, 2018 in Amherst, Massachusetts where she had moved as a result of illness. She is survived by her beloved husband, John Marshall McLean, daughters, Betsy McLean Vielhaber of Middleway Scotland, Robin McLean of Ikes Canyon, Nevada, Debbie Mclean of Sunderland, Mass, and Kim McLean of Peoria, Illinois, six grandchildren, Marshall McLean O’Leary, Carlyn McLean O’Leary, Sophie McLean Converse, Kate McLean Converse, Leo Vielhaber and Ella Vielhaber, and one dear cousin, Betsy Barr of Upper Saddle River, NJ.

A Celebration of Life will be held at the Abbey Chapel at Mount Holyoke College on September 22, 2018 at noon. All are welcome to attend. All gifts should be directed to The Fisher Home of Amherst or The Alzheimer’s Association, or the Peoria Area Food Bank.

Leonard (Len) W. Lucien, Jr., 54 of Amherst passed away peacefully on August 17, 2018 after a short illness with his family by his side.

A resident of Amherst for the past 17 years, Len was born in Somerville and raised in Natick.

In his younger years Len played many sports including football, baseball, hockey and basketball.

He was a 1982 graduate of Natick High School; he continued his education graduating from Salem State University and Newbury College, majoring in business and accounting. Throughout his career he worked in various aspects of finance and operations, managing businesses of different sizes with an expertise in start ups and efficiencies. For 12 years, he worked in the transit industry where he met his wife Carolyn and established many close friendships.

Len was a lifelong supporter of the Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics. His love for sports brought him to his position of Chief Operating Officer at Sports Travel and Tours in Hatfield, MA, where he was able to incorporate his love of sports into his work life.

Len enjoyed vacationing on Cape Cod, New Hampshire, Boston, Florida, Saratoga and New York City with his family.

Len was very active with his church, St. Brigid’s in Amherst where he served on the Parish Council and was also a member of the Parish Finance Committee.

Len was the happiest when he was with his family. He adored his Wife and took great pleasure in his children. His family was the center of his life. Len enjoyed his weekends watching his Children’s sports/activities and coaching their baseball teams. A nice afternoon golfing with family and friends was another favorite pastime. He was extremely loyal and dedicated to his family and friends valuing and cherishing his time spent with them. Even in his final days, his wonderful sense of humor kept everyone smiling.

Len is survived by his beloved Wife, Carolyn; his children Johanna and Sean; his Mother, Lorraine Donahue; his Grandmother, Helen Tustin; his sisters Suzanne Lucien, and Lori Imparato and her Husband, John; his Mother-in-Law, Joan Hart; his Brothers-in-Law, Francis Hart and Daniel Hart and his Wife, Elaine; and many nieces and nephews that he cherished as well as cousins.

In lieu of flowers, kindly make a donation in Len’s name to St. Brigid’s Parish, 122 N Pleasant St, Amherst, MA 01004 attention Father John Smegal or to the Francis E. Hart Scholarship Fund, Bank of America 99 Founders Plaza, CT 2-547-05-19 Attn: Jean Harrison East Hartford, CT 06108.

Calling hours will be Wednesday, August 22nd from 4-7pm at the Douglass Funeral Service in Amherst. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held on Thursday, August 23rd at 10am at St. Brigid’s in Amherst, with burial to follow in St. Brigid’s Cemetery.

Amherst – Beverly L. Bielunis, 79, died on July 28, 2018 at Nassau University Medical Center, East Meadow, Long Island, NY.

Born in Amherst, MA on September 28, 1938, she was the daughter of Francis M and Evelyn L. Bielunis. She graduated from Amherst Regional High School and then attended Grace Downs Airline Career School, where she worked until they closed. She also worked for several banks in New York City and Long Island before her retirement.

After retiring, she moved to Hempstead Senior Housing, where she continued her passion of the “Big City” and traveling, which included trips to Europe, Canada, and other US states. Bev frequently visited Massachusetts for family gatherings.

Bev leaves behind her brother Edward and his wife Ingrid Bielunis, two nephews David and Michael and his wife Cheryl, and one great nephew Bruce, all of Hadley, her Uncle Adam and Aunt Connie Bielunis of Hatfield, and numerous cousins.

A calling hour will be held from 9:30-10:30am on Tuesday, August 21 at the Douglass Funeral Service in Amherst, followed by a service at 10:30am at the funeral home. A private burial will follow at the South Amherst Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Beverly’s name to the Hospice of Hampshire County.

Hadley, Robert “Bobby” W. Healy, passed away unexpectedly at home on Thursday August 9, 2018.

He is survived by his wife Laura, his daughter Lidia, his mother

Patricia Ocicki, his brother Steven Walas, and sister Mandy Ocicki. He was born

in Northampton October 18, 1974. Bobby attended Amherst Schools and lived in Hadley for most of his adult life and was a mason by trade. He will be missed dearly by his family and friends.

A Mass of Christian burial will be held Saturday August 18^th, 2018 at 10:00 AM at Most Holy Redeemer Church, Hadley. Burial will follow in Holy Rosary Cemetery.

A graveside service will be held Friday, August 10, at 1:30 pm at Saint Brigid’s Cemetery in Amherst.

Warren Averill was born in Taunton, Massachusetts in 1926 to George Warren and Astrid (Anderson) Averill. He graduated from Taunton High School in 1944, and received his B.S. degree from Brown University in 1948. He went on to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and received his M.S. (1950) and Ph.D. (1951) degrees, specializing in food science and analytical chemistry. He served as a corporal in the 5th Air Force in WWII in Japan during the occupation.

Warren and Martha Fellers of Amherst, MA were married in June of 1948, and raised four children, Stephen (1953), Anne (1954), Paul (1962) and Martha (1964). He is survived by 6 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren. Warren and Martha lived in Florida, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire before settling in Weston, CT for 25 years, where he worked as a research chemist for Perkin-Elmer.

Warren was a fabulous and generous husband, father, grandfather and uncle. He had 36 years of wonderful retirement, and lived a long, full, life. He enjoyed his long retirement, often visiting the family home in Eastham where he beachcombed, clammed, fished, sailed, worked on masonry and all forms of general upkeep on the homes. He was able to travel to all over the United States including California, Hawaii, and the Smoky Mountains. Memorable family trips also were made to the Bahamas, Rome, Venice and Pompeii. He kept busy with his favorite pastimes of woodworking and gardening in Amherst.

Amherst, Robert A. Cooke, 88, passed away Wednesday, August 1, 2018 at Cooley Dickinson Hospital from congestive heart failure.

Robert was born July 14, 1930 in Amherst to the late Esther Williams and Howard Cooke. He was a US Army veteran of the Korean War, and went on to work in construction.

Robert was predeceased by his brothers Howard Jr., “Bill,” Albert (Sonny), and James and sisters Esther, Thalma, and Virginia.

He is survived by four brothers: Charles, Richard, George (Pete), and Roy, two sisters: Jean Martin and Mary Martin, and many nieces and nephews.

A graveside service with military honors will be held Wednesday, August 8, at 11am at Wildwood Cemetery in Amherst.