obits

Elizabeth “Bette” Grimm Hoskins, 86

Hoskins, who died on March 9, 2021, formerly lived in Japan, Cincinnati and Kansas City. Full obituary.

Dorothy Ann Gagne, 93

Gagne is survived by five children, 11 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. She died on March 8, 2021. Full obituary.

Morris Levy, 91

Levy, a structural engineer, was former chairman of the board of Parsons Brinkerhoff. and principal in charge of the Central Artery/Tunnel project. He died on Feb. 13, 2021. Full obituary.

Ruth D. Williams, 98

Williams, who died on Feb. 10, 2021, was a former member of the First Parish in Lincoln and the Lincoln Garden Club. Full obituary.

 

Editor’s note: This is a compilation of obituaries (in order of the date of death) that were originally published at various times between mid-January and mid-February 2021. They were inadvertently deleted from the website due to a technical malfunction and later restored.

Pamela Gallup, 69

The flag was lowered to half staff on town buildings until February 10 to honor longtime Lincoln resident Pamela Gallup, who passed away on January 30 after a courageous battle with cancer. She leaves her son Tony.

Pamela, who graduated from Boston College and later Suffolk Law School, was very active in the Lincoln community. As a long-time member of the Housing Commission and Housing Trust, she was instrumental in shepherding the Oriole Landing project. She was also an advocate for group homes for the handicapped in Lincoln. For her work on affordable housing, she received the Bright Light Award, given each year at Town Meeting to a Lincoln citizen who made a significant contribution to the town.

“Pam was a passionate advocate for affordable housing and expanded housing diversity in Lincoln,” Town Administrator Tim Higgins said. “She employed her legal training and extensive knowledge of affordable housing programs for the benefit of people seeking to live in Lincoln, and there is no doubt that she helped open the doors for dozens of our current town residents.”

Michael McHugh, 87 McHugh, a former sergeant for the Lincoln Police Department, died on January 21. Click here for full obituary. Sophie Poulos, 100 Poulos died on January 14 and is survived by her children Diane Poulos Harpell, Theodore Poulos, and Nicholas Poulos. Full obituary. Gert Brieger, 89 Brieger, a scholar in the history of medicine and public health, died on January 13. Full obituary. Frank Ferguson, 94 Ferguson, an angel investor and philanthropist, died on January 12. Full obituary. Ralph Flannery, 97 Ralph Flannery, 97, a brick layer and racing enthusiast, died peacefully at home on January 12, 2021. Survivors include daughter Pamela Poulos and her husband Theodore of Lincoln. Full obituary and video of his burial. John Hart Terrell, 86 John Hart Terrell, a physicist and student of Japanese painting, cello, and Buddhism, passed away on January 13. Full obituary. Robert Lager, 63 Robert (Bob) Lager, one of the Lincoln Public Library’s custodians, passed away suddenly on January 10 in the library. The staff “always looked forward to seeing Bob — it meant our work day was over and we could share a joke or a story with him,” they said in a statement. “The most important part of the library staff is that we are a family. Bob was a member of our family, we are all in a state of shock. Bob was an incredibly hard worker who went above and beyond for his staff and family.” Click here to contribute to a fundraiser for Bob’s family in a fundraiser organized by friends of the Woodland School in Weston, where he also worked as a custodian. Full obituary. Kerri-Jae Sussman, 52 Sussman, who died on January 5, was a banker and served on the board of directors of the Newfoundland Club of New England. Full obituary. Italo “Al” Servi, 98 Servi, a Holocaust survivor, earned a PhD from MIT and worked in applied research in metallurgy. He died on January 2. Full obituary.

Michael McHugh Sophie Poulos Gert Brieger John Terrell Robert Lager Kerrie-Jae Sussman Al Servi

 

Kathleen F. (Young) Lane, of Lincoln, a woman devoted to family and faith, died peacefully at Emerson Hospital in Concord on January 2, 2021. She was 95.

Kathy was born and raised in Somerville, the daughter of the late George and Ella (Trefran) Young. She married Frank Lane of Belmont, and they lived in Lexington and Lincoln, building a successful real estate investment and management business. They hosted many family and social gatherings in their home, traveled extensively throughout the world, and enjoyed a beautiful bounty of friends throughout their lives. Frank predeceased her in 2002.

Kathy founded the Society of St. Vincent de Paul chapter at St. Joseph Church in Lincoln. She organized and delivered meals for the Bristol Lodge Men’s Shelter in Waltham, holiday gifts for families of St. Patrick’s Church in Lowell, and Thanksgiving turkeys and food donations for Catholic charities. She also helped initiate the St. Joseph’s Guild, running many social and fundraising events for the church for many years.

She was a kind and generous woman who loved celebrating holidays and birthdays, always making them festive and fun. Her unique and beautiful homemade birthday cakes were a reflection of each recipient’s special interests, and were very fun to receive. She was an accomplished cook and entertainer who loved being with and helping people.

As a devoted mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, Kathy will be forever missed by her daughter Patti Walch and her husband Steve of Sudbury; three grandchildren, Kimberly Walch of Marlborough, Jessica Timmermans and her husband Michael and children Mackenzie and Ryan of Sudbury, and Jeffrey Walch of Denver, Colo.

Due to Covid-19 restrictions, Kathy’s long life will be celebrated during a private funeral Mass on Wednesday, Jan. 6 at St. Julia Parish in Weston. Burial will follow at Lincoln Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, contributions in her memory may be made to Society of St. Vincent de Paul, P.O. Box 324, Lincoln, MA 01773.

Obituary courtesy of Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord. To share a remembrance or to offer a condolence in Kathy’s online guestbook, please click here.

Shirley Stone

Shirley Stone passed away on December 13 at age 94. Click here for obituary.

Joseph Burns

Joseph Burns died on December 4 at age 75. Click here for obituary.

Roberta Berry

Roberta Berry died on December 1 at age 73. Click here for obituary.

Shirley Stone

Joseph Burns

Roberta Berry

The following Lincoln residents have passed away in recent weeks. Click on a name to go to their online obituary.

• Janet Branch, 1936–2020
• William Burgess, 1924–2020
• Arthur G. Koumantzelis, 1930–2020
• Doris Marchant, 1928–2020

Anna (Anneke) Feuilletau de Bruyn passed away on October 30, 2020. Anneke spent her last years in Lincoln, Massachusetts, with her son Marc Herant and his family, ending there a life of international travels that only saw her return to Holland, her country of national origin, on a handful of occasions.

Anneke was born on October 15, 1923 in Bogor, a sleepy agricultural town in West Java in what was then the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. She was the youngest of three sisters. Her father, Willem, was a third-generation Dutch colonial army officer who had led a number of expeditions in unexplored areas of west Papua, while her mother, Henriette (née Mulder), was from a family of estate owners. Anneke grew up in Bogor in the twilight of the Dutch colonial years, acquiring a sense of place in society that would last a lifetime.

The family returned to Holland in the mid-1930s and settled in The Hague. The dark years of World War II would soon follow. Anneke’s father was interned by the German occupying force along with other Dutch notables, essentially as hostages to ensure the good behavior of the population. In 1944-45, now based in Amsterdam and working for the Ministry of Social Affairs, Anneke endured what the Dutch would call the Hunger Winter. She would often recall these times with tales of hardship and misery. From then on, Anneke staunchly refused to speak German, which she had mastered quite well. Trained as a secretary and typist, she went to London at the end of the war where she worked at the Dutch Royal Navy HQ as a Wren (Women’s Royal Navy Service).

Anneke then joined the Dutch diplomatic service as a clerical worker. This was the start of a travel spree over a decade long that saw her first posted in Kenya, where she found a world much akin to that of her childhood in now-independent Indonesia. Portugal followed, then Mao’s China, which at the time was completely closed to Westerners except diplomats, and finally the Shah’s Iran.

Anneke inherited from her parents a keen curiosity and a spirit of exploration that would lead her on many adventures in all of these countries, whether on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, on the grasslands of the Maasai Mara, along the Great Wall, on the Trans-Siberian Railway, or through the deserts of Iran. Anneke loved road trips and took her battered VW Beetle on solo journeys from Tehran throughout the Middle East and eventually back to Europe — highly adventurous endeavours at the time.

In the early 1960s, during a holiday cruise in Greece, Anneke met Gilbert Herant, a French marine surveyor. They would spend the next 40 years together and have two children, Marc and Gilles.

In 1974, the whole family moved from Paris to Greece, where Gilbert had founded a small shipyard that tended to the nascent yachting industry in Rhodes. Athens would become their residence for the next 25 years. They brought up the children there within the French expatriate environment to which Anneke would remain anchored until the aging couple’s return to Lorgues, a village in the south of France, in 2003.

After all these years abroad as a staunch expatriate and outsider, Anneke found home and kinship in Lorgues and, probably for the first time in her life, fully embraced the community she lived in. She was socially active, volunteered in a large number of local charities, and finally found where she belonged. Her declining health prompted her final move to Lincoln, where her eldest son Marc sheltered her for the remainder of her days.

Anneke leaves two sons (Marc and Gilles) and five grandchildren (Joshua, Servanne, Sophie, Margaux, and Camille). Perhaps her biggest legacy to these subsequent generations is a sense of independence, in which belonging remains secondary to being one’s true self, and a huge love for mountains and the outdoors.

Susan Shelby (Patterson) Harding, age 78, died peacefully at home from metastatic brain cancer on October 27, 2o20. She was born July 13, 1942 in Louisville, Ky., the daughter of George C. and Kitty Park Patterson. She graduated from the Louisville Collegiate School in 1960 and from Radcliffe College in 1964 as a Phi Beta Kappa art history major.

She is survived by her husband of 55 years, Douglas Burnham Harding, and her two children, Susan Allen and her husband Woody of Knoxville, Tenn., and Douglas Harding, Jr. and his wife Kathleen of Great Falls, Va. She was proud of her three grandsons Alexander, William, and Parker. Prior to raising her family, Susan worked as a system programmer at the New England Telephone Company.

Many words are needed to describe the full “sum and substance” of Susan. Loving, committed, curious, elegant, inclusive, and a doer, to name a few. Her interests were many, including music, art, dance, theater, reading, and travel.

Active in town affairs, Susan served as president of the local league of Women Voters for many years and various town committees and boards including the Recreation Committee, Town Archives, and the Cemetery Commission.

Susan remained active in alumnae affairs after graduation through the Radcliffe College Alumnae Association. She chaired alumnae councils, and various committees. She was active in class activities and co-chaired her 50th reunion. She was a member of the Happy Committee, which helps maintain discipline and decorum for the celebration of Harvard Commencement each year, and also served as president of the Harvard Club in Concord for many years.

Susan was an avid gardener and horticulturist. She was an active member of many groups including the Native Plant Trust and the Lincoln Garden Club, and served as president of the Massachusetts chapter of the Rhododendron Society.

She enjoyed history and genealogy as an active member of the Order of the First Families of Virginia and the National Society of Colonial Dames in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She also served as director of Stratford Hall in Virginia and president of the Margaret Coffin Prayer Book Society in Boston.

Susan’s interests in history and education intersected nicely with her love of travel. She and her husband enjoyed many trips to Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America, often connecting with former Harvard students they had hosted for over 30 years through the Harvard International Student Office.

Susan will be remembered and missed by her family and many friends and organizations. Her burial will be private as she wished. Memorial contributions in her name may be made to the National Society of Colonial Dames in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 55 Beacon St., Boston MA 02108 or the Native Plant Trust, 180 Hemenway Rd., Framingham MA 01701. Condolences may be left on her obituary page on the Concord Funeral Home website.

Due to a rainy forecast, the memorial service for the late Mark Hagenian that was scheduled for Friday, Oct. 30 will instead be held on Saturday, Oct. 31 at 11 a.m. in the Lincoln Cemetery.

John Adams of Andover and Lincoln died on October 7 of Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia at the age of 79. A direct descendant of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, he maintained strong ties to the Adams Historical Site in Quincy, often giving talks about important events in the Adams’ lives.

John was born on April 13, 1941, eight months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Due to the war, his early childhood was spent on various army bases where his father, Thomas Boylston Adams, a Boston Globe columnist for many years, served as a gunnery instructor, teaching young men to shoot down fighter planes from B-17 and B-24 bombers. John was the oldest of five children and grew up in Lincoln, where his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had also grown up.

In many ways his family resembled a typical Boston upper class family of the ’50s and ’60s: prestigious clubs, private schools, frequent entertaining, and travel abroad. But his parents put a significant twist on this pattern by privileging and promoting artistic and cultural achievement in their guests and the lives of their children. John’s mother, Ramelle Cochrane Adams, was an accomplished pianist and the house was often filled with the sounds of children practicing or impromptu concerts. A trip to France was organized around a pilgrimage to the great cathedrals where the children were taken to high mass to experience the power of music in the vast spaces and were then later tasked with drawing a stained glass window or writing their impressions in their sketchbooks.

John spent every summer from the age of seven at a family compound on the South Shore called the Glades Club. There he was a leader of a tribe of children and shared all the sports passions of the time: swimming, diving, spearfishing, sailing, tennis, softball, model making, charades, beckon and magic glove. Forecasting what would become his obsession with naval history, John led his cousins in assembling from kits a fleet of battery-operated warships. The group deployed them in dramatic battles in Glades puddles, culminating in their destruction by cherry bombs.

The usual educational paths for an Adams at this historical point were either the fields of the humanities or finance. Science or technology was a discipline the Adamses respected but definitely considered alien to their family culture. Nevertheless, John’s style of thinking did not lend itself to areas of gray. He liked to use his intense focus to solve complex problems with a definitive outcome. And so he majored in math at Harvard and then, by 1974, achieved master’s and PhD degrees in structural engineering from Tufts and MIT, respectively.

His special insight at this time was seeing the possibilities of the computer as it applied to the practice of engineering. In 1965, the computer was in its infancy and its power to solve real world problems was just beginning to be realized. At this pivotal moment, by chance, John was given the opportunity to run the computer center at Tufts and thus gained so many insights about its application to engineering that he taught a course using the computer to design the structures of buildings. He was thrilled to note his professors sitting in the back row of his classroom. It was when he was at Tufts in 1966 that he met Patricia Jones, a fellow Harvard student from West Hartford, Conn., to whom he was married for 53 years.

In 1972, after the birth of their first son, Sam Adams, John and Patty bought a big old house with John’s brother Peter Adams and his wife Sherry on the Higginson estate just up the hill from his parents’ house in Lincoln. Another brother, Douglas Adams and his wife Trish, built a house across the pond from this house, thus forming a kind of informal Adams enclave. John and Patty’s second son, Darcy Adams, was born in 1977. These families lived abutting each others’ very spacious back yards, raising their children together for 20 years. The Adams parents continued to be the glue holding the family together, planning the special rituals of holiday celebrations, Sunday teas, and dinner parties often followed by Shakespeare readings, waltz evenings or a lecture at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

All his life, John never stopped being the paradigmatic oldest child. He was caretaker and teacher to his siblings and children, enthusiastic cheerleader and supporter of his wife, and later mentor and leader of the large groups of engineers building complex products and over whose careers he watched. He had a huge impact on the lives and careers of many people. He was respected and loved by people around the world. He gave workers confidence by seriously listening to their opinions. He helped employees see the unique value they added to the team, giving them visions of themselves that built on their uniqueness. His openness to new ideas made controversial issues discussable and fostered a safe space in which to be honest and direct. The nature of his job was to let others speak and thereby foster the technical development of the group. But he allowed himself to show his deep technical prowess when presenting the products his groups designed. Customers sat spellbound listening to his visions of how they could transform the way they did business using his products.

John often led by example. In a fast-paced and competitive environment, first at Digital Equipment Corp. (1976-1996) and later at RSA Security (1996-2001), John urged his team to put family first. He had large pictures of his wife and sons all over his office and rarely missed an important event in their lives. He inspired his group to keep family foremost in their thoughts.

In terms of professional accomplishments, John was especially proud of his contributions bringing the pioneering Ethernet LAN technology to market while at Digital. He was also proud of being an integral part of the acquisition of RSA Data Security when he worked for Security Dynamics. His vision for their integration into RSA Security helped set the tone for the merged companies, ultimately creating one of the most recognized names in cybersecurity.

In addition to his beloved wife Patricia Adams, his beloved sons Darcy Adams and Sam Adams, and his cherished daughters-in-law Lena Adams and Courtney Adams, he also leaves his adored granddaughters Quincy Adams, Mary Adams, Lucy Adams, Georgia Adams, and Jane Adams. He leaves his much-loved brothers Douglas Adams and Henry Adams, beloved sister Ramelle Adams, sisters-in-law Patricia Ingersoll Adams, Marianne Adams and Sherry Adams, and brother-in-law Jeffery Lukowski. John was predeceased by his brother, Peter Boylston Adams. There will be a private service in celebration of John’s life this summer.

Condolences and memories may be left on Legacy.com.