Pelham – Thomas G. “Britty” Britt died peacefully on Wednesday July 29, 2015 at Cooley Dickinson Hospital surrounded by his loving family.

He was born February 2, 1947 in Northampton to George T. Britt and the late Mary Elizabeth Britt (LaRose).

He proudly served in the United Sates Army for 23 years. He was a decorated Vietnam War veteran, receiving a purple heart among many other medals.

After his military service, he worked at the University of Massachusetts until his retirement. He was a member of VFW post 754 and the American Legion post 148.

He is survived by his son Sean Britt of Seattle, WA, his 3 brothers; James and his wife April of Florence, Richard of Hatfield, and John of Florence, his sister Beverly Ross of Olympia, WA, and several nieces and nephews.

Tom was predeceased by his brother Robert Britt.

Funeral services will be Tuesday, August 4, at 10am with full military honors at Massachusetts Veterans Cemetery in Agawam with a reception to follow in Amherst.

Obituary and memorial register at www.douglassfuneral.com

Service details, Social networking, Memorial Guestbook and Slideshow are available here.

Amherst, Louis Fischer, 91, died surrounded by family on July 29, 2015, after a short illness. 

 

Lou was born in 1924 near the Czech-Hungarian border to Hungarian Jewish parents. In 1939, Lou, his two older brothers, and his mother fled Hungary and moved to Lorain, Ohio, where he completed a K-12 American education in two years. He strengthened his English skills by working part-time as a movie theater usher.  

 

After finishing high school, Lou enlisted in the US Army and was sent to the Pacific front. He served in Papua, New Guinea and participated in the landing in the Philippines, where he was wounded and spent 11 months recovering.

 

Aided by the GI bill, Lou attended Ohio State and then Stanford for law school, where he met Barbara Bree, his wife of 63 years, on the breakfast shift in the student union.  He went on to practice law in Monterey, where his caseload included a pro-bono discrimination case representing African American servicemen who were being denied service in local bars.

 

Inspired by his wife’s work as a teacher, Lou began to turn his attention to the philosophy of education. He received a Ph.D. in Education from Stanford University, became a professor of Education at the University of California, Northridge, and served as president of the John Dewey Society.  He spent most of his teaching career at UMass Amherst, and following turmoil in the department, served as Acting Dean for the School of Education. He later worked as an assistant to the University Chancellor for several years. His scholarship focused on the rights of teachers, students, parents, and counselors, and he co-wrote numerous books, including Teachers and the Law, which is currently in its ninth edition. 

 

After retiring from UMass, Lou worked as a consultant for Georgetown University Street Law Project and U.S.A.I.D., designing and conducting workshops on democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in Eastern Europe and newly independent Soviet States.

 

Lou was a dedicated husband, father, and grandfather, a voracious reader and an accomplished tennis player. He is survived by his wife, Barbara Bree Fischer, of Amherst, MA, his daughter Valerie Bang-Jensen and son-in-law Lars Bang-Jensen of Burlington, VT, daughter Cathleen Potosky and son-in-law Cyril Potosky of Chantilly, VA, and daughter Judith Bree Miller of Belchertown, MA. He is also survived by five granddaughters and two grandsons-in-law: Bree Bang-Jensen and Travis Bouker of Arlington, VA, Leah and Chris Ferezan of Haymarket, VA, Emily Potosky of Washington DC, Nell Bang-Jensen of Philadelphia, PA, and Jillian Miller of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. They will remember him for many reasons, but most of all, for his grace in raising three strong daughters and five granddaughters, his love of quince and all good food, crafty tennis shots, delight in making puns, and determination to teach his family Hungarian phrases, despite limited success.

 

In light of Lou’s commitment to American ideals, in lieu of flowers, the Fischer family requests that well wishers make donations to Project Citizenship, which helps permanent residents overcome barriers to naturalization.  Donations are accepted online (www.projectcitizenship.org), by mail (4 Faneuil South Market Building/3^rd Floor, Suite 4025/Boston, MA 02109), or by phone (617-694-5949).

 

Obituary and memorial register at www.douglassfuneral.com

Service details, Social networking, Memorial Guestbook and Slideshow are available here.

Amherst – Mary Frances Hough, 94, of Amherst, died on Tuesday, July 7 at the Center for Extended Care in Amherst, where she received excellent care.

She was born on October 7, 1920 in Santiago, Dominican Republic, to James Webb of Illinois and Maria Giralt of the Dominican Republic.  Her parents met when her father was serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in the Dominican Republic and her mother was teaching Spanish to the Marines.  She spent her youth growing up in Santiago and became a teacher there. These years were troubled by the brutal dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, and in later years she shared many stories of the effects of the dictatorship on her family and friends. 

She married Curtis Hough of Lissie, Texas on April 24, 1948, who was working for Plantation Dauphin, a sisal plantation near Cap Haitien, Haiti, and there raised three children.  She home schooled her children and was a scout leader to many of the otherchildren.  In 1964 they moved to Killeen, Texas, where Curtis purchased an automobile dealership.  After Curtis died in 1987, she continued living in Killeen until 2003, when she moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, to be near her son Gary and his family.  While living in Killeen, she served as a volunteer at the Metroplex Hospital, of which she had many fond memories.  In Amherst, she lived in the Ann Whalen apartments and was a member of St. Brigid’s Catholic Church.  She was an amateur artist, musician and an ardent bridge player all her life, and a member of the bridge group at the Bangs Senior Center in Amherst.  She was a passionate reader, and after she could no longer read print, she joined an audio book club that came together at the Senior Center.

She is survived by her three children Gary Hough, Frances Hough, and Margaret Bonneville, her daughter in law Mary Pryor Hough and son in law Jeffrey Bonneville; four grandchildren, Jennifer Hough, Emily Mileham, Sadie Bonneville, and Tara Bonneville; and three great-grandchildren, Octavion, Zoe, and Marcelo Emerson.

Mary Frances will be remembered by her family as a creative woman of great intelligence and presence, a deep and playful sense of humor, a ready engagement with everyone who entered her life, a natural command of graciousness and charm, and for the courage and good spirits with which she faced her final years.

A funeral service will be held for her at St Brigid’s Catholic Church in Amherst on Friday, August 7, at 10 A.M.  Her ashes will be buried in Eagle Lake, Texas, beside her husband Curtis.

Obituary and memorial register at www.douglassfuneral.com

Service details, Social networking, Memorial Guestbook and Slideshow are available here.

Amherst, Edward Harvey Conrad, 83, of Amherst died unexpectedly in his sleep on July 21, 2015.  He had a full and rich life.

He was born on May 5, 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Mary and Benjamin Cohen, the youngest of three children.  He graduated from Central High School in Philadelphia and the Wharton School of Business.  He received a PhD in Psychology from New York University.  He had a long working career as a clinical psychologist at Brooklyn State Hospital and as the co-founder and co-director of the Whitman Institute for Counseling and Psychotherapy in Brooklyn, New York. 

He had a lifelong love of music and was deeply passionate about opera.  He sang with the University of Pennsylvania chorus that performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra.  He also sang with the Hampshire Choral Society for several years.  He was also an avid Patriots fan.  He will be sorely missed for his generosity of spirit and wonderful sense of humor.

He is survived by his wife of thirty-six years, Kathy Conrad, his children Rachel Conrad and son-in-law Thomas Rooney of Shutesbury, Abby Smith and son-in-law Mark Smith of Hadley, Elizabeth Conrad of Amherst, and Adam Conrad of Amherst; and his sister Geraldine Schneeberg of Philadelphia and brother Jay Mortimer and sister-in-law Barbara Mortimer of Sherman Oaks, California. He is also survived by five grandchildren: Emma and Sammy Conrad-Rooney; and Jessi, Tori, and Alyssa Smith.  He was predeceased by his son David Conrad.

The family will welcome friends at their home Thursday, July 23^rd from 4pm to 7pm and Friday, July 24^th from 4 pm to 7 pm. A memorial service will be held at a future date.

Obituary and memorial register at www.douglassfuneral.com

 

Service details, Social networking, Memorial Guestbook and Slideshow are available here.

Amherst, Normand Berlin, 83, died unexpectedly, his wife Barbara with him, on Monday, July 13, 2015 at his home in Amherst.

 

Born to Ben and Anna Berlin on the Lower East Side in New York City on December 6, 1931, he grew up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.  He attended Boys High.  He received his BA, Phi Beta Kappa, from New York University Uptown in 1953.  He then served two years in the army during the Korean War.  He was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship in 1955 and chose to attend Columbia University where he received his MA in English literature in 1956.  He earned his PhD in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley. 

 

Normand taught at McGill University from 1961-1965.  He joined the faculty of the English Department at the University of Massachusetts in 1965.  Through exchange and summer programs he also taught at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, 1971-72; the University of Hawaii, 1974-75; the University of Manitoba, summer 1977; Dalhousie University, summer 1980; the University of Freiburg, Germany, 1983-84; Harvard University, summers 1987, 1989; Oxford University, summer seminars 1988 and 1991 (as director of the program); the University of British Columbia, summers 1992, 94, 96, 97.  He was Consultant and Lecturer at the Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies from 1997 to the present.

 

In 1976 Normand received the UMass Amherst Distinguished Teaching Award, the campus’s highest honor for classroom excellence; in 1989 the UMass Humanities Research Fellowship; in 1995 the Eugene O’Neill Bronze Medal; and in 2015 the Renaissance Center Medal, the center’s highest honor.  At the ceremony, Chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy said that through his teaching “Normand helped thousands understand the importance of humanities in our lives.”  He was a Rockefeller Foundation Resident Scholar in Bellagio, Italy, 2001, and a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome in 2005.

 

Normand was the author of five books, one casebook, and numerous articles ranging from medieval poetry to modern drama to film.  He was an invited lecturer on drama in the United States, Canada, Germany, Monaco, People’s Republic of China, and Japan.  Among his books are The Base String: The Underworld in Elizabethan Drama, O’Neill’s Shakespeare, which connects the two writers Normand taught and wrote about most, and The Secret Cause: A Discussion of Tragedy, which explores the tragic nature of human existence and its presentation in drama.  In this, his most notable book, Normand explores the mystery of tragedy found in the curve of a question mark.

 

Normand served on the Editorial Board of English Literary Renaissance, was Theater Editor of The Massachusetts Review, Advisory Editor of The Eugene O’Neill Review, and Advisor for the PBS documentary on Eugene O’Neill, “The Glory of Ghosts.”

 

Normand, along with Barbara, was a founding member of the Jewish Community of Amherst where he led services in the early years, was rabbi for two Bar-Mitzvahs, and was the driving force in creating the Jewish Community of Amherst cemetery located in Shutesbury. 

 

He served as a Town Meeting member for the town of Amherst.

 

In 1956 Normand married Barbara Esther Schoenberg of Brooklyn, NY.  The couple moved to Berkeley, California the day after their wedding.  They lived in Berkeley for four years where their son Adam was born.  They moved to Montreal where their son David was born, and lived there for four more years.  In 1965 they came to Amherst.  Their travels took them around the world, including year-long stays in Jerusalem, Honolulu, and Freiburg. 

 

In 2013, Normand became a grandfather to Gali Berlin.

 

Normand and Barbara walked through Amherst every day, hand in hand.

 

 

 

Donations in Normand’s name can be made to the Jewish Community of Amherst, 742 Main Street, Amherst, MA 01002 or The Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies, Post Office Box 2300, Amherst, MA 01004.

 

Obituary and memorial register at www.douglassfuneral.com

Service details, Social networking, Memorial Guestbook and Slideshow are available here.

Amherst, Normand Berlin, 83, died unexpectedly, his wife Barbara with him, on Monday, July 13, 2015 at his home in Amherst.

Born to Ben and Anna Berlin on the Lower East Side in New York City on December 6, 1931, he grew up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.  He attended Boys High.  He received his BA, Phi Beta Kappa, from New York University Uptown in 1953.  He then served two years in the army during the Korean War.  He was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship in 1955 and chose to attend Columbia University where he received his MA in English literature in 1956.  He earned his PhD in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Normand taught at McGill University from 1961-1965.  He joined the faculty of the English Department at the University of Massachusetts in 1965.  Through exchange and summer programs he also taught at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, 1971-72; the University of Hawaii, 1974-75; the University of Manitoba, summer 1977; Dalhousie University, summer 1980; the University of Freiburg, Germany, 1983-84; Harvard University, summers 1987, 1989; Oxford University, summer seminars 1988 and 1991 (as director of the program); the University of British Columbia, summers 1992, 94, 96, 97.  He was Consultant and Lecturer at the Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies from 1997 to the present.

In 1976 Normand received the UMass Amherst Distinguished Teaching Award, the campus’s highest honor for classroom excellence; in 1989 the UMass Humanities Research Fellowship; in 1995 the Eugene O’Neill Bronze Medal; and in 2015 the Renaissance Center Medal, the center’s highest honor.  At the ceremony, Chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy said that through his teaching “Normand helped thousands understand the importance of humanities in our lives.”  He was a Rockefeller Foundation Resident Scholar in Bellagio, Italy, 2001, and a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome in 2005.

Normand was the author of five books, one casebook, and numerous articles ranging from medieval poetry to modern drama to film.  He was an invited lecturer on drama in the United States, Canada, Germany, Monaco, People’s Republic of China, and Japan.  Among his books are The Base String: The Underworld in Elizabethan Drama, O’Neill’s Shakespeare, which connects the two writers Normand taught and wrote about most, and The Secret Cause: A Discussion of Tragedy, which explores the tragic nature of human existence and its presentation in drama.  In this, his most notable book, Normand explores the mystery of tragedy found in the curve of a question mark.

Normand served on the Editorial Board of English Literary Renaissance, was Theater Editor of The Massachusetts Review, Advisory Editor of The Eugene O’Neill Review, and Advisor for the PBS documentary on Eugene O’Neill, “The Glory of Ghosts.”

Normand, along with Barbara, was a founding member of the Jewish Community of Amherst where he led services in the early years, was rabbi for two Bar-Mitzvahs, and was the driving force in creating the Jewish Community of Amherst cemetery located in Shutesbury. 

He served as a Town Meeting member for the town of Amherst.

In 1956 Normand married Barbara Esther Schoenberg of Brooklyn, NY.  The couple moved to Berkeley, California the day after their wedding.  They lived in Berkeley for four years where their son Adam was born.  They moved to Montreal where their son David was born, and lived there for four more years.  In 1965 they came to Amherst.  Their travels took them around the world, including year-long stays in Jerusalem, Honolulu, and Freiburg. 

In 2013, Normand became a grandfather to Gali Berlin.

Normand and Barbara walked through Amherst every day, hand in hand.

 

Donations in Normand’s name can be made to the Jewish Community of Amherst, 742 Main Street, Amherst, MA 01002 or The Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies, Post Office Box 2300, Amherst, MA 01004.

Obituary and memorial register at www.douglassfuneral.com

Service details, Social networking, Memorial Guestbook and Slideshow are available here.

Virginia C. Oldershaw (Cooke), 84, died on July 9, 2015, after a long illness.

 

Virginia graduated from Westfield State College, and taught in East Hartford, CT. She worked for many years in the Amherst Regional School System, in the audio visual department.

 

Virginia was predeceased by her husband, Bruce R. Oldershaw in 2013. She is survived by three children; Alan, Brenda, and Sharon, and five grandchildren; Diane, Craig, Austin, Anthony, and Evan.

 

Calling hours will be from 5:00-7:00pm on Wednesday, July 22^nd at the Douglass Funeral Service in Amherst. A graveside service will be Thursday, July 23, 2015, 9:30 AM at Pine Hill Cemetery, Westfield, MA.

 

Obituary and memorial register at www.douglassfuneral.com

Service details, Social networking, Memorial Guestbook and Slideshow are available here.

AMHERST – Virginia Ladd Johnson, 100, died Monday, July 13, at the Center for Extended Care in Amherst. 

Born Dec. 1, 1914, in Washington, DC, she was the daughter of the late Bernard G. and Edith Ladd. She attended DC public schools and graduated from the former Wilson Teacher’s College, a predecessor of the University of the District of Columbia. She taught first grade in the DC schools for several years. 

In 1938 she married another teacher, Keith C. Johnson, and concentrated on raising her family, which included providing care and therapy to her youngest two children after they contracted polio in 1949.  

She and her husband were avid square dancers. They were also active members of St. Columba’s Episcopal Church in Washington, singing in the choir and founding two bell choirs there. When her children were older she went back to teaching in the church day school for many more years. After Keith died suddenly in 1983, she remained involved in the life of the church, joined a group that regularly attended the theater, and travelled with some of her many friends.  

She lived in Washington all her life until moving to The Arbors at Amherst in 2001 to be near family. She was an avid reader and worker of crossword puzzles. After her eyesight failed in recent years, she continued listening to audio books until her death. 

She is survived by two daughters, Kay (Johnson) Moran of Amherst and Janet (Johnson) McAlister and husband Thomas of Huntsville, AL; her son David Ladd Johnson and wife Judith of Oshawa, Ontario; six grandchildren, Seth C. Moran of Camas, WA; Amy Ladd Moran of Kailua, HI; Brian McAlister of Gardendale, AL; Michael McAlister of Harvest, AL; Paige (Johnson) Wallis of Malden, MA; and Amanda (Johnson) Gentry of Monroe, WA; and 12 great-grandchildren. Her son-in-law Charles Moran III, her brother Bernard D. Ladd, and a great-grandson died earlier. 

Ceremonies will be private.

Obituary and memorial register at www.douglassfuneral.com

 

 

Service details, Social networking, Memorial Guestbook and Slideshow are available here.

NORTHAMPTON – Walter Hines Winternitz died Saturday, June 27, 2015, at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton.

He was born Nov. 5, 1922, in Boston. His parents Sibyl (Bingham) and Robert Winternitz moved to Nutley, New Jersey, when Walter was five. He spent much of his childhood in Nutley, attending public school until his parents moved to an apartment on Washington Square in Greenwnich Village. He spent his high school years at boarding school.

In the fall of 1941 Walter began to attend Harvard, but his studies were interrupted when he was drafted into the U.S. Army where he served in the Philippines. At the end of the war, Walter returned to complete his undergraduate education at Harvard where he decided to enroll in R.O.T.C. program. Her was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army, but soon chose to enter the U.S. Air Force. His most notable experiences took place again in the Philippines where he was assigned to intelligence gathering during the Korean Conflict. He sought out and interviewed mariners from neutral nations. Walter spent three years in the Philippines in which he was able to renew family ties with Filipino relatives. He pursued graduate work at the University of the Philippines, eventually obtaining his masters’ degree in political science during the period of great optimism which surrounded the presidency of Ramon Magsaysay. Her remained in the U.S. Air Force until 1967. Westover Air Base in Chicopee, was his last assignment, and he soon began a new civilian life in Amherst.

In 1968, he married Janet Copeland with whom he remained for the rest of his life. He worked for the Real Estate Agency of Mike Skibiski in Sunderland, and then later he worked for the Ketchen family in Belchertown. He was a life long member of the Episcopal Church until he chose to attend South Congregational Church to be with his wife and two sons.

He is survived by his wife Janet and his sons Robert and Andrew.

A memorial service is planned in the near future.

Service details, Social networking, Memorial Guestbook and Slideshow are available here.

 

Belchertown, Jeannette Mary Bellisario, 95, of Belchertown, Massachusetts, passed away peacefully at home, on Wednesday morning, July 8, 2015, in the company of her loving family.  Born in Indian Orchard, MA, on March 23, 1920, Jeannette was the daughter of Emile Stebbins of Canada and Lelea Gaudreau of Indian Orchard. Jeannette attended Commerce High School in Springfield, worked at American Bosch Company in Springfield, and raised her family of five children in Ludlow, MA. She was a life-long communicant and active parishioner of St. Elizabeth Parish formerly known as St. John the Baptist church in Ludlow. She was an active member of The Sisters of Saint Anne and for many years sang in the choir and participated in church activities. She was an active participant in the Senior Center of Ludlow.  She loved to travel and took many trips with her sisters. Jeannette was also an antique dealer, employed by Henry Polissack Antiques in Amherst. After the death of her beloved husband Egidio Bellisario, she moved to Northampton, MA, and was a parishioner at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Northampton.

Jeannette is survived by her son Ronald Bellisario and his wife Vida Bellisario of East Greenbush, New York,  and their children James, Andrea, and Daniel; her daughter Suzanne Lynch and her husband Daniel Lynch of Port St. John, Florida, and their sons Matthew and Robert; her daughter Diane Bellisario and her partner Lynne Spichiger of Belchertown, Massachusetts; her daughter Janet A. Gallenstein and her husband Thomas  W. Gallenstein of Westhampton, Massachusetts; and her son Richard Bellisario and his wife Marie Bellisario of Newberg, Oregon, and their children Nicholas and Hali. She is also survived by seven great grandchildren.

Calling hours will be Friday July 10^th, 2015, from 5 – 7 PM at the Douglass Funeral Service, 87 North Pleasant St. in Amherst, MA. A funeral Mass celebrating Jeannette’s life will be at St Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish, 99 King St., Northampton, MA on Thursday, July 16^th at 10am followed by burial at 12:30 pm at St. Aloysius cemetery in Springfield. Obituary, calling hour and funeral mass information and memorial register can be found at www.douglassfuneral.com.  In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the Saint John the Baptist school located at 217 Hubbard Street, Ludlow, MA 01056.

Service details, Social networking, Memorial Guestbook and Slideshow are available here.