Susan Eckel

Susan Hall Eckel of Lincoln, who taught scores of elementary school students during a decades-long career as a teacher in Concord, died in Boston on May 6, 2024. She was 82.

Born January 6, 1942 in Port Chester, N.Y., to Robert Russell Hall and Jean Collins, Sue, as she was widely known, grew up in Riverside, Conn., where she was known to be gregarious and social. She was an avid sailor at the Riverside Yacht Club and sang in the choir at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, nurturing a lifelong love of music.

She graduated from Greenwich High School in 1959 and then enrolled at Colby Junior College for Women in New London, N.H. (known today as Colby-Sawyer). After two years, she moved to Boston to attend Boston University, and she graduated from the School of Education with a Bachelor of Science in 1963. That summer, she participated in an exchange program in the Netherlands with the Experiment in International Living with a Dutch host family, which she recalled fondly for years.

While teaching at Hanscom Air Force Base, a mutual friend introduced her to an officer in the U.S. Air Force, George Mitchell Eckel III, known widely as Mitch. They married on August 28, 1965 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. Susan accompanied Mitch as he underwent pilot and other training in Kansas and various locations around the United States. When Mitch was deployed overseas, she lived briefly in Riverside, Conn., with her parents and taught in the Riverside schools.

Following Mitch’s return from to the United States, they moved to Cambridge, where Mitch enrolled at Harvard Law School. Susan began teaching again at Hanscom in the summer of 1969. Their first son, George Mitchell Eckel IV (Mike), was born in 1971. The following year, after Mitch completed law school, the family moved to Manchester, N.H. Their twins, Peter Heywood Eckel and Richard Hall Eckel, were born in 1974. In 1975, Susan, Mitch, and their three boys moved to Concord, where they lived for the following 43 years.

Susan initially worked as an educator at the Milldam Nursery School in Concord, then as a kindergarten teacher in the Concord Public Schools, and later as a first-grade teacher, primarily at Alcott School. She retired in 2007.

Susan was a devoted citizen of Concord. In addition to working in the schools, she was a member of the Trinitarian Congregational Church. She was an avid gardener and active in the Concord Garden Club in her later years. She also was an enthusiastic member of the Hugh Cargill Trust, which provides short-term emergency assistance to Concord residents in times of financial need.    

In their later years, she and Mitch moved to Lincoln, where they were committed members of the Farrar Pond Community.  

Susan loved being a grandmother, attending soccer games, gymnastics events, and dance recitals. She will be remembered as a dedicated teacher, a loyal friend and “adventurer.”

Susan was predeceased by her husband of 58 years, Mitch, who died in July 2023, and her younger brother Robert Russell Hall, Jr., who died in April 2011. She is survived by sons Mike (Jenn) of Prague, Czech Republic; Richard (Marcy), of Stow, Mass.; and Peter (Isabelle) of West Roxbury, and their families, including eight grandchildren, Lily, Sydney, Scarlett, Daphne, Henry, Louise, Charles, and Grace, along with her brother, Daniel M. Hall of Palm City, Fla., and her sister Jane C. Hall of North Conway, N.H.

Family and friends will gather to remember Susan at her memorial service on Saturday, July 20, 2024, at 3 p.m. at the Trinitarian Congregational Church (54 Walden St., Concord). Burial in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord will be private. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in Susan’s memory to: Trinitarian Congregational Church, 54 Walden St., Concord, MA 01742 or the Hugh Cargill Trust, Town of Concord, ATTN: Hugh Cargill Trust Committee. P.O. Box 535, Concord, MA 01742.

Arrangements are under the care of Concord Funeral Home, which provided this obituary. Click here to visit her online guestbook.

Marijke Holtrop

Marijke E. Holtrop loved the outdoors, skiing, backpacking, kayaking, mountain climbing, skating, and above all, sailing. She was a nature photographer, a nonfiction/scientific writer, and a scientist in the field of medicine. She passed away at her home in Lincoln on June 8, 2024 at age 92.

Marijke was born on April 17, 1932, in the Netherlands. She is the daughter of Marius Wilhelm Holtrop and Josien Holtrop-Juchter and the sister of Ernst Jan and Wouter Holtrop. In 1936, she and her family moved to California, where she attended kindergarten and two years of grade school. She loved her life there. They moved back to the Netherlands in 1939. The next spring, World War II broke out. This deeply affected Marijke. Deep down, she always wanted to go back to the U.S., and she did. After Marijke got an M.D. and a Ph.D. at the State University of Leiden in the Netherlands, she moved to the United States for good. She was a researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital Medical Center (Harvard Medical School) for many years, using photography to study bone cells and producing numerous publications.

When Marijke encountered hardship and times of trouble, she would go sailing to reconnect with friends and nature. “The wind touching my skin, the sun warming my body, the gentle rocking of the boat, the sounds of the waves splashing against the bow and lapping against the hull of the boat, the melodious washing of the water along the rocky shore, and the expanse of blue sky and drifting clouds reached my inner core and revived my spirit,” she wrote.

Marijke was also an intellectual interested in evolution, consciousness, ecology, biology, and environmental issues. Her spiritual interest was Taoism.

In retirement, Marijke thrived. She moved to Lincoln in 1998 where she created a living space to her needs: a “green” house in a quiet natural setting, with ample space for two housemates. Her world stretched out from the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge to the ocean, sailing on her 23-foot boat Wu-Wei, sleeping on board and taking friends out.

She became a successful nature photographer. Nature and people, people and nature. She was healthy and strong, cognition and memory as clear as ever. Marijke gained a sense of belonging by connecting with a variety of people interested in environmental issues. “Much to contribute and much to learn,” she would say. She had found total peace within and was excited about how her life was evolving connecting with nature, family, and friends.

Unfortunately, Marijke contracted Lyme disease, which was first misdiagnosed. It seriously affected her health. Later, a tumor in her abdomen caused further trouble. She died in her home with friends and family close by.

Marijke was a truly remarkable woman. She will be missed.

In August 1989, many decades before her passing, Marijke wrote: “I feel that my life is a small part of a large process. My life is flowing like a river in a diverse landscape of valleys and mountains, fields, and forests. The river flows on and on, always moving, never still — sometimes fast and turbulent, sometimes slow and peaceful. The river feeds water to the land it runs through, water as an essential energy in life. The river also receives water from its tributaries and thus is being fed. In this way, there is a continuous flow and exchange of energy. The river becomes wider and wider and has more and more water to contribute to the land.

“Where is the river going? Eventually, the river will flow into the ocean, a homecoming, and will merge with the ‘ten thousand things,’ the everything, and become nothing and everything at the same time.

“When will that happen? The day I die.”

A private commemoration with family and friends was held on June 12. Donations may be made in Marijke’s memory to Friends of Woodlands and Waters, P.O. Box 27, Hudson MA 01749. Please indicate that donations are intended for the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge.

Myra Green

Lincoln resident Myra Green passed away on June 21, 2024. She was born on February 11, 1947 in New York City, the daughter of Louis Goldenberg, eventual president of the Manhattan-based Wildenstein Gallery, and his gracious wife and fellow golf enthusiast Helen Goldenberg.

Both Myra and her younger sister Barbara became accomplished classical pianists, attended New Rochelle public schools, and for many years enjoyed, with their friends, summers at Camp Wi Co Su Ta in New Hampshire. In 1964, Myra enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania as an English major, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1968. She subsequently became one of the very few female members of the Yale Law School’s class of 1971. Her 1970 marriage to her first husband, David Green, an aspiring physician, ended in divorce, but not until years after their sons Michael and Alexander were born.

Myra’s first job as a lawyer was at Proskauer Rose LLP in New York. She and her husband then moved to Boston where, as an associate at the firm of Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP, she acted as the first general counsel to University Hospital, now Boston Medical Center.

At Choate, Myra rose to become one of the earliest female partners of a major Boston law firm. Over the ensuing twenty years, she mentored many young lawyers, served a term as chair of the firm’s health care law department, developed a national reputation for excellence in her specialty, and routinely won “best lawyer” honors from her peers. She did all this while working “part-time” helping to raise her sons and her two stepdaughters, Audrey and Sarah, from her marriage in 1987 to Jeffrey Heidt, also a partner at the Choate firm.

Myra left Choate in 2004 to become the first general counsel to Health Dialog, an international health care disease management enterprise. Following the company’s acquisition by a British insurer, she became general counsel to DentaQuest, the management company for a large number of Delta Dental plans across the country.

Myra and Jeff traveled extensively around the world but spent most of their summers with friends and family at their summer home in Chilmark on Martha’s Vineyard. Myra loved long beach walks, seafood lunches in Menemsha, and the sensuous joy of swimming in the surf at Black Point Beach on the island’s south shore. She loved to play in the sand with her children and, in time, her nine grandchildren (all of whom called her “Ummi”, which is Yiddish for “grandma”).

In 2015, Myra and Jeff had a family home rebuilt on Jeff’s family’s lakefront property on Lake Ainslie, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The pandemic prevented them from enjoying it as much as they would have liked, but they loved their visits to the property, savoring fresh air, lake breezes, the Cabot Trail, wildlife, and the company of friends and relatives.

Myra was known to all as kind, warm, loving, smart, and classy as they come, while remaining modest to a fault. She loved her life which, like those of her parents, was cut tragically short by a debilitating disease, but throughout the course of her illness she maintained an upbeat attitude, a smile for everyone, and a readily apparent love of her friends and family.

She and Jeff moved to a retirement community in 2020, where Jeff remained by her side. Myra passed on June 21 in the company of her husband and family, listening to music she loved and surrounded by pictures of the people who loved her. She is survived by her husband Jeff; her children, Michael Green and his wife Laura Carey; Alex Green and his wife Katie, Sarah Provance and her husband Alan, Audrey O’Shaughnessy and her husband Shannan; her sister, Barbara Goldenberg; and her grandchildren Franklin, Rose, Martin, Olivia, Aiden, Ares, Rowan, Brianna, and Sadie.

A celebration of Myra’s life will be held at the Pierce House in Lincoln in July. Donations in lieu of flowers may be made to the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund, 34 Washington St., Suite 310, Wellesley Hills, MA 02481 or at curealz.org.