obits

A funeral is scheduled for 2 p.m on Saturday, Nov. 14 at St. Anne-in-the-Fields Church in Lincoln for Judith Cogswell Fiske Gross, who died on November 9 at the age of 91. She was active with the Pierce House, the Lincoln Nursery School and St. Anne’s. Click here for her obituary and memorial page.

Other obituaries

• Virginia E. Kennedy, 80 (November 5)
• Jane Thankful Smith, 74 (August 21)

Charles A. Hales, M.D., 74, of Lincoln died on October 31. He was the beloved husband for 50 years of Mary Ann (Little) Hales; the loving father of Sam, Chris and John; and brother of the late Mary Elizabeth “Betsy” (Hales) Carter. He is also survived by seven grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at the First Parish in Lincoln, where the guest minister Reverend Dr. John Lombard will officiate, at 11 a.m. on Friday, November 6. There will be a private interment in Lincoln Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in his memory may be made to the  Recompense Fund, c/o The Maine Community Foundation, P.O. Box 42, Chebeague Island, ME. 0401 or the Home Base Program, which is dedicated to caring for veterans and their families. This organization is supported by the Massachusetts General Hospital and Emory University. Dr. Hales was a Navy veteran (Vietnam era).

Arrangements are under the care of the Dee Funeral Home of Concord. To share a remembrance in his online guest book, visit www.deefuneralhome.com. A more detailed obituary is expected next week in the Lincoln Squirrel.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, Sept. 19 at 2 p.m. at the First Parish Church in Lincoln for Gwen Morgan, who died on September 4 at the age of 90. She was a long-time advocate for and authority on quality child care and early childhood education. You can read her obituary here and a tribute here by the president of Wheelock College, where Morgan taught and was director of the Center for Career Development in Early Care and Education. That piece has links to several more tributes, including one by Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute.

 

 

 

A celebration of the life of Wesley Frost will be held on Sunday, Sept. 20 at 3:30 p.m. at the Pierce House. His obituary was published in the Lincoln Squirrel on July 8.

To the editor:

To all the friends and neighbors of Peggy Schmertzler, thank you for the many emails and cards expressing your fond memories of Peggy, condolences, empathy and emotional support for our entire family.

We’re resorting to this method of saying “thank you” to make sure that you know as soon as possible that we received and appreciated your messages. Hopefully, we will be in touch more directly in the not too distant future.

Sincerely,

The Schmertzler, Clapp and Bridgman families

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Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters must be about a Lincoln-specific topic, will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.

A service will be held in Lincoln on Sunday, August 30 for Peggy Schmertzler of Lincoln, who passed away peacefully on August 28, 2015. She was the beloved wife of Alvin Louis Schmertzler; mother of Francis Brooks Belford of New Zealand, Caleb Cushing Clapp of Gloucester and Margaretta Story Phillips of Santa Monica; and stepmother of Amy Anisimov of Newton and Michael Schmertzler of New Canaan, Conn.

Née Margaretta Stewart Bridgman, Peggy was born on November 17, 1931, the youngest daughter of Eveleth Wilson Bridgman, MD and Mary Cushing Whitridge Williams, both of Baltimore, where Peggy grew up. After graduating from the Bryn Mawr School in 1949, Peggy attended Radcliffe College, where she obtained in an AB in history in 1953. Shortly thereafter, Peggy married Samuel Francis Clapp, a Boston lawyer. The couple settled in Swampscott, where their children were born.

Following her divorce, Peggy moved to Cambridge and worked for the next 15 years in the nonprofit sector including positions at Children’s Hospital in Boston and Jobs for Youth, where she was Director of Employment and then Director of Fundraising. During that time, Peggy also received her MA in Continuing Education from Boston University. She married Al in 1974.

Peggy helped found in 1988 the Committee for the Equality of Women at Harvard. She was the organization’s first president and continued working until 2014 to promote the status of—and opportunities for—female students, faculty and alumnae at Harvard University.

After moving to Lincoln in 1985, Peggy was also involved in numerous local civic, social and political organizations including the Lincoln League of Women Voters, the Lincoln Democratic Town Committee, and the Council on Aging.

Peggy is the beloved grandmother of Claire Bridgman Belford of New Zealand and Austin Bridgman Clapp, Lida English Clapp and Elizabeth Clapp of Boston; and step-grandmother of Ian Michael Schmertzler and Ethan Jared Schmertzler both of New York, and Jenny Soo Jung Anisimov of Newton.

A memorial service for Peggy will be held at First Parish Church of Lincoln (14 Bedford Road, Lincoln) at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, August 30. Private family burial is in Lincoln Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to your favorite charity.

Arrangements are under the care of Susan M. Dee and Charles W. Dee, Jr., Dee Funeral Home of Concord.  To share a remembrance or send a condolence in Peggy’s online guestbook, please visit her obituary page on the Dee Funeral Home website.

(Editor’s note: The Lincoln Squirrel usually posts links to obituaries on other websites when available, but this was written expressly for the Squirrel by the widow and son of Mr. Frost.)

Longtime Lincoln resident Wesley Towne Frost died June 1, 2015 at Emerson Hospital in Concord at the age of 89 after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Wes was born on March 4, 1926 in Norwich, Conn., and spent most of his childhood in Putnam, Conn. As a young man, he trapped coyotes and panned for gold in Alaska. Later, he logged in Vermont with cross-cut saws and chainsaws, riding stacks of logs out of the woods with a surfer’s balance while driving a team of work horses. He also took part in the back-to-the-land movement started by Scott and Helen Nearing in Jamaica, Vt. (Helen Nearing later wrote Living the Good Life about the community they founded in Jamaica.) Eventually, Wes bought 100 acres of land there.

While blacksmithing candlesticks at the American Youth Hostel headquarters in Northfield, Mass., and biking around New England, Wes met October (Toby) Cullum, whom he later wed. They had two sons, and they stayed happily married for the next sixty years.

In the 1960s, Wes went back to school while supporting his young family by working in a metallurgy lab, earning a BSEd, an MAT in history, and a CAGS in adult education at Boston University. He also travelled to Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and the Sudan on a summer Fulbright during this time. In 1964, he got a job as a teacher at the Pollard Junior High School in Needham, and the family moved to Lincoln. He taught there for 21 years, innovating programs in history, social studies, and anthropology.

Wes and Toby joined the Cambridge Friends Meeting (Quakers) during the early years in Lincoln. An organic gardener and nature lover, Wes became a founder of Lincoln’s recycling program. He was also active with the Democratic Town Committee and a member of librarian Jeanne Bracken’s “The Write Stuff” group for would-be writers.

Wes is survived by his wife, Toby (October Frost); his brother Quentin Frost (and wife Cecile); his sons Arlo Piers Frost (and wife Stephanie) and Rainer Lindon Cullum Frost (and wife Martha); and his grandchildren Brendan Whitney Frost, Riordan Piers Frost, Andrew Cullum Frost (and wife Jeanine, and their daughter, Wes’s great-granddaughter Arabella Dorthea Frost), Annette Shelden Frost, Katharine (Kate) Russell Frost, and Henry Dykema Frost.

A remembrance service celebrating Wes’s life will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, September 20 at the Pierce House at 17 Weston Road in Lincoln (click here for directions). Donations in Wes’s memory may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association and the Audubon Society.

There will be a memorial service at the First Parish Church in Lincoln on Wednesday, May 20 at 3 p.m. for Paul E. Giese, who died in January at the age of 76. A native of Seattle, he moved to Lincoln in 1966 and worked as a management consultant for Arthur D. Little. He did extensive volunteer work for the Town of Lincoln as a member and later co-chair of the Finance Committee, Commissioner on the Water Board, board member of the Friends of the Council on Aging and Friends of Modern Architecture/Lincoln. His wife Lucretia and other family members will hold a reception at the Pierce House following the service. Click here for his full obituary.