obits

There will be visiting hours on June 30 and a service on July 1 for Jacquelyn Hall Snelling, 86, recently of Maynard and formerly of Lincoln and Concord, who passed away on June 24, 2023 at Emerson Hospital. She was the beloved wife of 66 years to John R. Snelling.

Jacquelyn Hall was born in Boston on January 15, 1937, the only child of Abbott Hall and Ebba (Hanson) Hall. Early raised and educated in Roslindale, she moved to Needham where she attended and graduated from Needham High School. She later attended secretarial school at Westbrook College in Maine, earning an associate’s degree.

Jackie and John married on May 31, 1958, in Christ Episcopal Church in Needham. They first settled in Boston for a short time before relocating to Lincoln for many years, and in 2013 they moved to Concord.  Jackie worked as a secretary for both Digital Equipment Corporation as well as St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Lincoln before retiring in 1995.

A devoted wife, mother, grandmother and recently great-grandmother, Jackie cherished the time with her family. She knitted baby sweaters for family and friends as well as Christmas stockings that are still hung by chimneys with care.

Jackie was a selfless, caring person. She was a long-time contributor and volunteer for Emerson Hospital, Meals on Wheels, the Lincoln, and Concord Council on Aging. She also drove many elderly residents to their local appointments.

Along with her husband John, she is survived by her son Philip R. Snelling and wife Kathleen of Lawrenceville, Ga., and her daughter Kristen Snelling Barrett of Maynard. She is also survived by her grandchildren, Lauren and Kyle Khawly, Tucker Barrett, Shannon Barrett Porter and her husband Steven, and James Barrett, as well as her great-granddaughter Ava Porter.

Family and friends will gather to honor and remember Jackie on Friday, June 30 from 4–7 p.m. at the Concord Funeral Home (74 Belknap St., Concord). Her funeral service will be held on Saturday, July 1 at 11:00 am at St. Anne’s-in-the-Fields Church, 147 Concord Rd., Lincoln. Burial in Lincoln Cemetery will be private. Donations in her memory may be made to Emerson Hospital, 133 ORNAC, Concord, MA. 01742

Arrangements under the care of Concord Funeral Home, which provided this obituary. Click here to see Jacquelyn’s remembrance page.

Donald Allan Millard III, 61, passed away on May 16, 2023, at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton. He had not been ill but died of a sudden anoxic brain injury.

Donnie was born in Boston on March 24, 1962, to Donald A. Millard Jr. and Catherine C. Millard, and grew up in the town of Lincoln. He was autistic and nonverbal, and received educational support through the public school system and private schools until he was 18. Since then, he received vocational training, job placement and job coaching from Autism Services Association in Wellesley and Waltham.  He worked at Shaw’s/Star Market for over 30 years, and at Demoulas Market Basket for eight years. He lived in a small group home in Bedford managed by Cooperative for Human Services of Lexington.

At a very early age, Donnie showed musical ability. He could pick out tunes on the piano, and he sang – without words. Classical music was his favorite, but he loved folk music and the Beatles as well, and he would dance to recordings. His CD collection was huge — Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was a real favorite. He was still taking weekly lessons with a music therapist at Powers Music School in Belmont.

Years ago, his parents bought a summer house on the beach in Hull because Donnie loved to swim — he swam underwater in the pool his father had built at his grandparents’ house in Lincoln, but he especially loved the beach, where he could run free and body-surf in the waves.

Autistic people are seen as lacking relationship skills and are not responsive even to the affection of their parents. While this was true of Donnie as a small child, he obviously grew in affection toward his parents, his sisters, and others in his world. He always greeted us with delight and enjoyed his holidays with us. He was a happy man. He seemed to illustrate Sigmund Freud’s belief that every man needs his love and his work.

Donnie is survived by his parents, Donald Millard Jr. and Catherine C. Millard of Lincoln, and his sisters, Ann Lindsay Clinton of Hull and Carol C. Millard of Lexington.

Family and friends are all invited to gather for visiting hours on Tuesday, May 30 from 4–7 p.m. at Dee Funeral Home, 27 Bedford St., Concord, MA. There will be no funeral services. Burial on Wednesday, May 31 in the Lincoln Cemetery will be private.

In lieu of flowers, please make a charitable contribution in Donnie’s name. Donations to Autism Services Association Inc., 47 Walnut St., Wellesley Hills MA 02481 or Cooperative for Human Services, Inc., 420 Bedford St., Suite 100, Lexington MA 02420 would be especially meaningful choices.

Arrangements are entrusted to Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord, which provided this obituary. To sign Donnie’s online guestbook, please click here.

John Jacob Mohr of Lincoln passed away on May 8, 2023 at the age of 96. Affectionately known as Jack, Dad and Pop-Pop, he was born in Lima Ohio on June 24, 1926. 

Jack grew up in an apartment with his mother above the Renz family bakery, in the building his grandfather owned. He got started with both photography and wood working at an early age. And after serving in World War II, he went on to college, graduating from MIT in 1950. It was while at MIT that he met Jean Field. They were married in the fall of 1950. Spending most of his career at Polaroid, he helped design and manufacture the Swinger, Big Swinger, and the SX70.

All who knew Jack will miss him terribly. But we know that he is now back together with his wife and in God’s care. He is survived by daughters Bonnie and Heather, her husband Paul, and grandsons Robert and John.

Jack was laid to rest in a private service on May 12, 2023 with U.S. Army military honors at the Lincoln Cemetery. Donations in his memory may be made to: Memorial Congregation Church of Sudbury, MA, The North Bennett Street School of Boston, MA, and MIT, Cambridge, MA.  

Arrangements are entrusted to Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord, which provided this shortened obituary. Click here for Jack’s full obituary and online guestbook.

Beloved mother of four, grandmother of ten, Geraldine “Gerry” S. Hirshland passed peacefully on Saturday, May 6 in Concord, Mass., surrounded by her loving family at the age of 93.

She was a previously a long-time resident of suburban Philadelphia, active in the community and a prolific painter and lover of art (one of her paintings was accepted to the Philadelphia Museum of Art).

Following the retirement of Sam, her husband of over 40 years, the two moved to Chestertown, Md., to follow their love of sailing and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. She loved her time in Chestertown and was on the board of Chester River Yacht and Country Club and was active with Washington College and the Sultana Education Foundation.

Following many wonderful years in Chestertown, Gerry moved to Lincoln, Mass., to be near several sons and grandchildren. She continued her painting and love of life helping launch the art program at her new home, The Commons in Lincoln. Gerry will be remembered by all for her kindness, radiant smile, exuberantly positive spirit, and for opening up her heart and home, in times of tragedy, in celebration, or just because “it was five o’clock somewhere.”

Her favorite quote was “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning how to dance in the rain,” and would want us all to dance in her memory.

In addition to her marriage with the love of her life Sam, Gerry also had two other loving marriages. She was first married to Richard Krauss in 1953 until his untimely death from cancer in 1960. After Sam’s death in 2001, Gerry married Allan Malcolm, who passed in 2010. As befitting of her cheerful outlook on life, Gerry did not dwell on the fact that she was three times a widow, instead saying “I was blessed with the love of three men and for that I am lucky.”

Gerry is survived by her four sons, Bob, Roy, Larry, and Mike; grandchildren Gregory, Sammy, Henry, Maggie, Jack, Oliver, Hailey, Lucy, Jamie, and Sam; and daughters in law Christine, Rasa, and Tina. She will be laid to rest during a private burial service on Friday, May 12, 2023. In lieu of flowers donations can be made in Gerry’s name to the Sultana Education Foundation, 200 S. Cross St., PO Box 524, Chestertown MD 21620. The foundation provides hands-on educational opportunities that promote stewardship of the Chesapeake Bay’s historic cultural, and environmental resources by helping students of all ages gain an appreciation for the Chesapeake Bay and the environment.

Arrangements are entrusted to Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord, which provided this obituary. To share a memory or to offer a condolence in her online guestbook, please visit www.DeeFuneralHome.com.

Edward Franklin Koehler, age 92, of Lincoln, died peacefully at home on April 27, 2023 Koehler was larger than life. He was an architect and artist whose work can be seen over five continents. His art included numerous album covers and murals. He was particularly proud of his final murals created for the Veterans Administration in Bedford. He was an arts and sports enthusiast who revered Stan Kenton, Frank Lloyd Wright, Modigiliani, Humphrey Bogart, the New York Giants, and the Boston Celtics. He had a lifelong passion for Native American people and their causes. His enthusiasm was contagious. He impacted all who knew him.   

Koehler was born in Springfield, Mass., on August 29, 1930 and graduated from the University of Illinois before serving as a decorated Korean War veteran. He was prouder of his Combat Infantryman’s Badge than his Bronze Medal. 

Ed leaves behind his children, Art and Debbie Koehler of Harvard; Chuck and Karen Koehler of Mattapoisett, Michael Koehler and Abby Goldstein of Brooklyn, N.Y., Laura Koehler and Cary Pepper of San Francisco, Lee Koehler and Brian Ward of Rockport, and Jeanie Koehler and Ron Rice of Concord. He was the husband for 57 years of the late Meg Koehler, father of the late Niki Koehler, and brother of the late Paul Fox Koehler. 

Perhaps his greatest impact is his lasting influence on his seven children, seven grandchildren, and seven great grandchildren (with two more coming). He always loved his time with “the little ones.” 

Family and friends will gather for visiting hours in the Dee Funeral Home (27 Bedford St., Concord) on Wednesday, May 3 from 5–7 p.m. His funeral service will be held on Thursday, May 4 at 11 a.m. in the Farrar Chapel at Dee Funeral Home. Burial will follow with U.S. Army military honors at Lincoln Cemetery. 

In lieu of flowers, contributions in his memory made be made to the American Indian College Fund or St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.  

Arrangements are entrusted to Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord, which provided this obituary. To share a remembrance or to offer a condolence in Ed’s online guestbook, please click here.

A funeral service will be held in St. Anne’s in-the-Fields Episcopal Church on Tuesday, April 11 at 11 a.m. for Murray Nicolson, 84, of Concord, who passed away on Saturday, April 1, 2023, surrounded by his beloved family.

He leaves behind his loving and devoted wife of 61 years, Barbara (Jones) Nicolson; his son, Edward Nicolson and his wife Valerie of San Francisco, Calif.; three grandchildren, Eleanor, Walter and James Nicolson; and his brother, David Nicolson and wife Liz of Edinburgh, Scotland. He was predeceased by his son, Stephen Murray Nicolson.

Family and friends are invited to gather for his funeral service at St. Anne’s in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, 147 Concord Road, Lincoln on April 11 at 11 a.m. Services will conclude with a reception in the parish hall and burial at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in Murray’s memory to St. Anne’s in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 6, Lincoln, MA 01773.

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Arrangements are under the care of Dee Funeral Home, which provided this obituary. To share a remembrance or to offer a condolence in Nicolson’s online guestbook, visit  www.DeeFuneralHome.com and click on Obituaries.

Eugene M. Darling, Jr., who served for 28 years as an environmental scientist with the federal government, died on February 12, 2023 at the age of 98.

Darling grew up in Wellesley as the son of the late E. Merrill Darling and Barbara T. Darling. After graduating from Wellesley High School in 1943, he served in the U.S. Army during the Second World War. He received an A.B. degree in mathematics from Harvard College in 1948 and an M.S. in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1953, where he was elected to the Sigma Xi Honor Society.

In the 1950s at the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories in Bedford, he studied the effect of meteorological factors on the performance of weapon systems.  In the 1960s, he conducted research on the utilization of meteorological satellite data at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. He later worked on artificial intelligence problems at the NASA Electronics Research Center in Cambridge. In the 1970s, he was chief of the Environmental Technology branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation, a position he held until his retirement in 1980. 

Darling served on the Board of Directors of the MIT Club of Boston for 25 years. He was a member of the Massachusetts Orchid Society and a founder of the New England chapter of the Indoor Light Gardening Society of America. He was especially fond of classic jazz and lectured annually at the Lincoln Library classic jazz series. He lived in Lincoln for many years and enjoyed a winter residence in Sarasota, Fla.

He leaves his sister, Patricia D. Andrews of South Bend, Ind., his nephew, Bruce L. Monteith of Ocala, Fla., and his niece, Teri S. Cousino of Berlin, Conn. Burial with U.S. Army military honors at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge will be private. 

Arrangements are under the care of Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord, which provided this obituary. For Darling’s online guestbook, please visit www.DeeFuneralHome.com. 

October (Toby) Cullum Frost was born March 10, 1933 in New Bedford, Mass., to Eugene and Clementine Cullum and died on January 22, 2023 in Acton, Mass.

Toby was a bright and lively child. She met her future husband, Wesley Towne Frost, when she was 10 (he noticed her riding her pony) and they stayed in touch over the years. As a teen, she attended the Northfield School for Girls and then went to Radcliffe College (and was delighted after the “non-merger merger” of Radcliffe and Harvard to learn that she now had a degree from Harvard). She earned two master’s degrees — a master’s in education from Harvard and a master of arts in German from Middlebury College. Education was quite important to her. 

Toby and Wes married in 1955 and moved to the land that Wes owned as part of the Scott Nearing intentional community in Jamaica, Vt. They had two sons, Arlo and Rainer, and moved to Cambridge, Mass., and then Putney, Vt. Finally, in 1964, they settled in a small farmer’s cottage on land in what was then rural Lincoln, Mass. Wes and his sons built a home around the cottage that Toby truly loved and lived in until her final illness.

Toby loved words. As a German and Spanish teacher at Woburn High School, she imparted the appreciation of other languages to her students and led a student trip to Germany and other countries. Toby loved to play with words, spelling them in funny ways or making them up. She found fun and humor in that — humor was essential, she would say, to a healthy life. At the same time, she was a stickler for grammar. She’d correct you when you were speaking or would be unable to focus on the gist of an important letter if it was poorly crafted. So it was a natural step, after leaving teaching, to pursue a career as a technical writer, eventually retiring from Digital Equipment Corp. (now Hewlett-Packard). For several years after retiring, she contributed articles to the Lincoln Journal, sharing her views on current events.

Toby cared deeply about progressive issues. She was particularly focused on prison reform and believed deeply in the potential of restorative justice. She supported issues related to global peace, including nuclear disarmament, antiwar movements, and negotiation and communication across political divides. She also cared about the health of the planet and how we treat it. Her interests were wide ranging. She loved to read newspapers, especially the Boston Globe, and magazines from a variety of sources.

The oldest of four, Toby loved her sisters Holly, Mercy, and Merry and worked to help out their families over the years. Her nieces, in particular, note the positive influences she had in their lives.  Toby leaves behind her sons Arlo and his wife Stephanie, and Rainer and his wife Martha; her grandchildren Brendan, Riordan, Andrew, Annette, Kate and Henry; and her great-grandchildren, Imogen (Brendan), Arabella (Andrew), Oliver (Annette), and Theodosia (Kate).

A memorial service will be held in the spring in Lincoln. In lieu of flowers, Toby requested that donations be made to the charity of your choosing in her memory. The family would like to thank the staff of Atrius/Harvard Vanguard Concord, Mass General Oncology, Emerson Hospital, Life Care Center of Acton, and New England Hospice for their excellent care and support of Toby during this final illness.

Arrangements under the care of Concord Funeral Home, which provided this obituary.

There will be a public memorial gathering at the Pierce House in Lincoln on Saturday, Dec. 17 at 2 p.m. for the late Esther Braun, who died on November 26, 2022 at the age of 96.

Esther Althea Kaplan Braun was born on March 4, 1926 to Annie Sabin Levenson and Jacob Joseph Kaplan of Dorchester. She was their fourth child and only daughter. Her original middle name was Alma, which she did not like and later changed to Althea in honor of her dear maternal grandmother, Esther Alta.

Her family moved to Jamaica Plain in 1931. It was a busy household; her father, a polymath and well-known Boston attorney, and her musically gifted mother were both active in numerous civic and philanthropic activities and her mother often hosted events at their home. Esther attended the Seeger School in Jamaica Plan for grades 1-3, and the Agassiz School for grades 4-6, which she recalled as “uninspiring.” By her own recollection, she was fearless on a sled in the winter and mostly — but not always — well behaved at home and in school. Her brothers were 8-13 years older, so for many years she was the only child at home full time. Her parents tried unsuccessfully to interest her in the Jewish faith and its rituals (about which they were in fact becoming more casual themselves), but she did love the family’s Seder and holiday dinners for the food and gatherings with members of her parents’ large clans, many of whom she loved dearly. To her final days, she loved large family dinner gatherings, a love she passed on to new generations.

Esther’s parents bought a large plot of old, overgrown farmland in Scituate in 1924. Its 18th-century farmhouse and massive barn became their summer home. She did not know many children in Scituate, however, and so spent her childhood summers until 1936 essentially “free range,” playing in the woods and fields, and, in her younger years, in a large playhouse her father built for her, complete with interior lighting, miniature indoor plumbing, and room for her to crawl inside. Later, she went to overnight summer camps.

She and her husband Mort eventually built a house on part of the Scituate family lands. She then could spend at least part of every summer there with her own children, who thereby got to know her parents and their Kaplan aunts, uncles, cousins who also stayed or visited there most summers. There was always a big family cookout with lobster, clams, and corn cooked in large pots out in the yard.

Esther started at the elite, grueling Girl’s Latin School in the seventh grade, commuting by bus and streetcar by herself. Not only was the workload severe — her bookbag was backbreaking. Whether this was the start of the back problems she suffered later in life, we will never know. Though she had friends there, the workload and the commute were brutal and, after four years, she transferred to Thayer Academy in Braintree. Here she discovered her love of math (and later, organic chemistry as well) and her ability to thrive academically when taught in a positive rather than punitive educational environment.

Esther was 13 in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, where many relatives on both sides of her family still lived. Letters stopped coming, the news on the radio and her own childhood experiences with antisemitism left her with a sense of foreboding, and her youngest brother went into the Army. She involved herself in volunteer work supporting the war effort and was forever after proud that her father invented the microfilm technology called V-mail (based on his patent for storing bank checks on microfilm) that allowed U.S. troops and their families to send mail back and forth in large volume throughout the war. In 1942 they also loaned their house to the Army for the residence of an officer and his family, while she and her parents lived in a hotel for the year; and in 1943 she spent her summer tending a field of potatoes for the army on the family’s Scituate lands, another of her father’s ideas to contribute further to the war effort.

She started college at Wellesley in 1943, after persuading the Chemistry Department to let her take a test in first-year organic chemistry. She passed that test well enough to skip their first-year organic chemistry class and graduated from Wellesley in 1947. That school year she also met a young naval officer and Harvard graduate, Mort Braun, on a blind double date arranged by mutual acquaintances, but not as each other’s dates! They soon figured out who they wanted to be dating, and things progressed from there.

Esther and Mort married in June 1947, and she continued to work in a blood chemistry lab until her pregnancy with her first child put an end to that. However, it did not end before her boss published a professional article on her work taking full credit for it himself, including for developing an improved method for measuring fibrin in blood, without a single mention of her name or position in the effort. She never forgave him or lost her determination to never again tolerate such male entitlement.

Esther became a full-time at-home mother with the birth of her first child, Peter, in 1949, then David in 1950, while Mort started his career in housing and city planning. They moved first to Boston, then to Brookline, and then into a house that Mort designed for them in Newton. Daughter Charlotte joined the family in 1953 and son Alan in 1957. Though they formed many close friendships in Newton, she and Mort wanted to live in a more rural area, and in 1959 bought property in Brown’s Wood in Lincoln. Mort again designed the house, and they moved there in 1960. The house included an attached greenhouse for her, in which she started each season’s garden crops and raised diverse flowering plants including an eventually huge Bird of Paradise, its occasional spectacular blooms a cause for household celebration.

In 1961, a ruptured disk in her back floored her. She refused surgery and, with everyone pitching in, she was able to return to full movement after a few months of careful rest. She suffered from back problems the rest of her life, but that did not stop her from becoming an avid organic gardener after she read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Her steadily expanding vegetable garden, and her consequently intensifying battle with the local deer and woodchucks became a constant topic of discussion and admiration thereafter. Her desire to have bird feeders up where she could watch them also drew her into battle with the local squirrels – a confrontation that she also continued for the rest of her life.

This same determination carried her into her next phase of life as her children all settled into full-time schooling. She and Mort became part of a small group that launched the Valley Pond Association and guided the construction of Valley Pond in Lincoln and Weston, a summer swimming and boating haven for local families ever since. In the early 1960s, Northeastern University began an experimental six-year, part-time program for “mature” adults to become teachers, in which she enrolled in 1963. One of the program’s components was a curriculum in what was called the “New Math,” in which she excelled. She graduated in 1969 and had the good fortune to be hired by the Lincoln Public Schools, where she had done some student teaching. This was a progressive school system, open to new approaches; she and another new teacher, Sue Reece, together taught a double-sized group of fourth- and fifth-graders in two connected classrooms, known fondly thereafter to generations of students as “Braun-Reece.” They divided much of the teaching topically rather than by room. Her specialties were science and math while

Sue’s were reading and language arts. She taught there with Sue until her retirement. Long before she retired, though, she started teaching a unit on the native peoples and prehistory of the northeast and became aware of how scant and bigoted the literature was on the topic. This resulted in a joint effort with her second son, a professional archaeologist, leading to their publishing a book, The First Peoples of the Northeast, in 1994. It has sold out multiple printings.

Esther’s life with Mort through the 1960s through the 1990s included dogs and cats, joyfully hosting grandchildren for summer vacations, numerous trips to England and Scandinavia, trips to the Caribbean (the latter sometimes with their young children), and, in later years, travel around the U.S. to see their increasingly widely scattered children and grandchildren. It also included frequent trips with friends to see Broadway shows in New York, raucous holiday parties with friends, and family visits with Mort’s New York City cousins including at their summer cottage on the Jersey shore. She also became proficient with software for recording family trees and, with Mort, prepared detailed trees for both of their vast families.

In 2001, she and Mort moved into an independent-living townhouse in Carleton-Willard Village in Bedford after Mort was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Mort died unexpectedly barely six months after they moved in, but not before he had helped her get her new garden plots going and her new bird feeders set up. She continued battling with squirrels over her bird feeders, and became a well-known figure at the Village, sitting on many committees, advocating for more sustainable landscape management practices including composting, and writing frequently for The Villager, the community’s newsletter. She helped organize the village library catalog and helped organize the still-ongoing growing of organic cherry tomatoes in quantity by village residents to add to the salad bar in the main dining room. She also stayed in touch with a vast network of family and friends and enjoyed frequent visits with her growing family of descendants – except during the pandemic, which frustrated her greatly. She began writing her memoirs, which she completed unfortunately only up through the 1970s before her death.

She died November 26 surrounded by her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She is survived by her four children and their spouses, Peter and Diane, David and Ruth, Charlotte, and Alan and Dara; her five grandchildren and their spouses Doria and Curtis, Jake and Amy, Luke and Karla, Alanna and Tyler, and Brandon; and her four great-grandchildren, Ariana, Kai, Maya, and Matilda Esther.

In addition to the December 17 public memorial gathering at the Pierce House, Carleton-Willard Village will host its own private memorial gathering. Interment in the Lincoln Cemetery will be private.

Echoing her own bequests, donations in her memory may be made to Carleton Willard Homes, “The Resident’s Association Fund,” or (2) Carleton Willard Homes, “The Employee Appreciation Fund.”