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Frances Ann Norman, 72
Known as the Story Lady
Frances Ann (Branagan) Norman of Natick died on Oct. 11, following a long illness, at the home of her daughter, Sheryl E. (Sherry) Norman in Plainville surrounded by family. She was 72.
She was born in Natick the daughter of the late Vincent A. and Katherine A. (McCarthy) Branagan and was a 1949 graduate of Natick High School.
Mrs. Norman was a lifelong Natick resident who devoted her life to being a homemaker and caring for her family. She was an avid reader and for years worked as a volunteer librarian, becoming known as the story lady for telling stories to the students at the Bennett-Hemenway Elementary School which all of her children attended in Natick. For many years Mrs. Norman was a member of the reunion planning committee of her high school graduating class. Later she worked as a nanny, caring for several sets of twins and, ironically, became the grandmother of twins herself.
During the summer, Mrs. Norman spent time with family and friends at Lake Cochituate near their family home.
She is survived by two daughters, Sheryl E. Norman and husband, Richard Dankel, of Plainview; Kristen Casey and husband, Donald Casey, of Edgartown; two sons, Robert J. (Rocky) Norman, Jr. in Arizona; and S. Vincent Norman of Shrewsbury; three grandchildren, Anna Elizabeth Dankel and Robert N. (Bo) Dankel, both of Plainview; and Kiana Fay Casey of Edgartown; two sisters, Alyce Fraser of Natick; and Mary Coutu of Acton; a brother, Lawrence Branagan of Wellesley. Also, Mrs. Norman is survived by the father of her children, Robert J. Norman, Sr. of South Natick.
A memorial service in celebration of her life has tentatively been scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 18 from 9 to 11 a.m. at the John Everett and Sons Memorial Home, 4 Park street, in Natick. A reception will follow. Burial will be private.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Walpole Area Visiting Nurse Association, P.O. Box 252, Walpole, MA 02081.
Bea Whiting, 89
Was an Eminent Anthropologist
Beatrice Blyth Whiting, a leading anthropologist of childhood and professor emerita of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, died on Monday, Sept. 29 of pneumonia at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass. She was 89.
Bea, as she was called, first came to the Vineyard in the 1930s with several other Yale graduate students including John W. M. Whiting. The group stayed on Tisbury Great Pond at a camp called the Studio that was owned by John's parents, Johnson and Emma Mayhew Whiting. The Yalies were on Island to cram from their German Ph.D exams. To this day, there are still German signs in the Studio. Bea married
John W. M. Whiting. In 1942 Bea and John had Daniel Manter build a house for them on the property next to the Studio on Tisbury Great Pond. That house is called the Establishment.
Bea loved South Beach and walked on it daily for most of her life. She loved to swim in the ocean and in the opening.
Bea was what one might call an aspiring flower gardener. She yearned for a perfect flower garden but was always too busy with her academic endeavors to realize her wish. She loved to engage in intellectual conversation and many people traveled Down Pond to do just that.
Shortly before her death Bea had finished checking the galley proofs for a new book she had coauthored with Caroline P. Edwards entitled: Ngecha: A Kenyan Community in a Time of Rapid Social Change, which is to be published later this year. This forthcoming work focuses on the lives of Kikuyu women in Kenya.
Dr. B. Whiting had previously coauthored: Children of Different Worlds: The Formation of Social Behavior (1988) with C. Edwards. That work was based on field studies in 14 diverse communities, and was a landmark study of children's social lives and the development of gender roles.
Dr. Whiting was a pioneer in psychological anthropology and the comparative study of child development and was one of the first women to be appointed to a tenured professorship at Harvard University. She investigated the activities, relationships and learning of children and women in diverse cultures, particularly in developing countries. She devised a naturalistic approach to the observation of child behavior that was influential in child development research.
Dr. Whiting's long-term collaboration with her late husband of 60 plus years, John W. M. Whiting, a fellow anthropologist and professor at Harvard who died in 1999, formed the basis of a unique training center for students for more than 30 years (1952-1985).
Beatrice H. Blyth was born in New York on April 14, 1914 and raised on Staten Island. After graduating from Bryn Mawr College in 1935, Dr. Whiting became one of the first women to study anthropology at Yale. She did fieldwork amongst the Paiute Indians in Oregon and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1943; her dissertation was published as a book, Paiute Sorcery: A Study of Social Control (1950). She lectured at Brandeis University and conducted research for Wellesley College prior to joining Harvard as a research associate in 1952; she became a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1973 and retired in 1980. She was a distinguished fellow at the Henry A. Murray Center for the Study of Lives at Radcliffe College from 1980-1985.
In 1954 the Whitings initiated the Six Cultures Study of Socialization of the Child, involving field studies on three continents, with collaborators from Yale and Cornell. In 1966 they founded and directed the child development research unit at the University of Nairobi. They and their students conducted field studies in Kenya in a rural Kikuyu community. The Whitings brought Kenyans to Harvard for graduate training from 1966 to 1973. After their retirement the Whitings directed the Comparative Adolescence Project, including studies on four continents, with Prof. Irven DeVore from 1980 to 1985.
Bea was a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1978-79. The Whitings jointly received the distinguished service award from the American Anthropological Association in 1982 and the career contribution award of the Society for Psychological Anthropology in 1989. In 1987 Beatrice received the distinguished scientific contributions award from the Society for Research in Child Development.
The Whitings remained active in the Martha's Vineyard community, where Mr. Whiting was born, and Mrs. Whiting served on the board of Martha's Vineyard Community Services for many years.
Her husband John W. M. Whiting and her son, William Bradford Whiting, predeceased Dr. Whiting. She is survived by her daughter, Susan Whiting of Chilmark, and son Stuart Whiting of Florida.
There will be a memorial service at the Whitings summer home on Tisbury Great Pond on October 19 at 1 p.m. Please bring a dish and share your memories of Bea.
In lieu of flowers donations are welcome to: Sheriff's Meadow Foundation, P.O. Box 319X, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568 or William Bradford Whiting Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 3177, West Tisbury, MA 02575.
Elsie H. Lombardi
Was Island Summer Resident
Elsie (Hayden) Lombardi died on August 11 in San Francisco. She was 97 years old. She recently moved to San Francisco from Tucson, Ariz., where she lived since 1971. She was born in Fall River and was the daughter of Pat and Annie (Tobin) Hayden.
Mrs. Lombardi was graduated from BMC Durfee High School in 1923. She received a master of education degree from the Rhode Island College of Education and was married
to the late Frank N. Lombardi. The Lombardis were longtime summer residents of Oak Bluffs.
During World War II, Mrs. Lombardi was a gas mask inspector in the Fall River Military Industrial Complex. She then worked as a seamstress in other Fall River mills before beginning her teaching career in the Fall River school system in 1947. Following a career of 23 years, Mrs. Lombardi retired as the principal of the George B. Stone Elementary School.
Following her retirement, Elsie and Frank Lombardi traveled extensively throughout Europe. As summer residents of Oak Bluffs, Mrs. Lombardi was proprietor of a gift shop and operated the Oak Bluffs Bathing Beach Pavilion for several years.
Mrs. Lombardi is survived by two sons, Frank Lombardi of Amherst, N.H., and Jerry Lombardi of San Francisco; four grandchildren, Nicholas Lombardi of Sudbury; Vincent Lombardi of Los Angeles, Calif.; Christina DiBattista of Sarasota, Fla., and Timothy Lombardi of Phoenix, Ariz.; and four great-grandsons.
A mass of Christian burial will be held on Monday at 10 a.m. in St. Alexander's Church, Child street, Warren. The arrangements are with William J. Smith & Son Funeral Home, 15 Church street, Warren. Interment will be in Alexander's cemetery.
Thaddene L. Johnson
Thaddene Lissette Johnson of Aquinnah died Saturday, Sept. 20, at Boston City Hospital. She and her family had celebrated her 50th birthday on May 16 with a party at the Outback Steakhouse in Quincy.
She was born in Germany in 1953 during the time when her father, Thaddeus, was stationed there while serving with the U.S. Army. After his stint in the military, Mr. Johnson and his wife, Constance (Candy) Jeannez, settled in Gay Head and raised their children. Thaddene's son, Kevin, was born on the Island; her daughter, Maya, was born and raised in Boston.
There will be visiting hours this Saturday, Sept. 27, from 1 to 2 p.m. at the Gay Head Community Baptist Church followed by a service led by the Rev. Roger Spinney. Interment will follow at the Gay Head cemetery. All are then invited to a potluck gathering at the Wampanoag tribal building. Donations in Thaddene's memory may be made to the family with correspondence directed to her mother, Constance Johnson, at 280 Martin Luther King Boulevard, Apartment 8, Roxbury, MA 02119.
Wallace C. Bartlett
Was U.S. Air Force Veteran
Wallace C. (Bart) Bartlett died on Wednesday, Nov. 5.
Mr. Bartlett met and married
Barbara Perry of Edgartown in 1942 while he was stationed at the Martha's Vineyard Naval Air Station. In the late 1940s, he was employed at the First National and Edgartown hardware stores. He went on to a 22-year career as an air traffic controller in the United States Air Force, followed by 20 years in the Unmanned Space Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. After their retirement, Bart and Barbara made their home in California.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Bartlett is survived by two daughters, Cyndi Davis and Deb Brown; a son, Gregory, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Memorial services were held at the Arlington National cemetery in Riverside, Calif.
Ann Marie Gallant
Was Loving, Generous Person
Ann Marie Gallant, 71, died Sunday, Nov. 16, at her home in Oak Bluffs, after a courageous battle with cancer. She was a beloved wife, mother and grandmother, and will be greatly missed by all who knew her.
She was born in Fall River to the late Edgar and Anna (Brady) St. John. She was graduated in 1950 from Warren High School in Warren, R.I. She married
Walter S. Gallant on June 4, 1955. They had 48 wonderful years together. They lived in Barrington, R.I., until retiring to the Vineyard in 1994.
A communicant of Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, she served as a eucharistic minister and CCD teacher.
Ann Marie had a loving and generous spirit. She loved cooking, the beach and being with her family and friends.
She is survived by her husband, Walter; her children, Kathleen Jaron of Cumberland, Md., Linda McCormick of Cranston, R.I., and Walter J. Gallant of Spring, Tex.; her two sisters, Bernadette DeBlois of Warren, R.I., and Geraldine Shallcross of Rehoboth, and seven grandchildren. She was the sister of the late Edgar J. St. John, Therese Huftalen and Catherine Romano.
A memorial mass will be celebrated in Our Lady Star of the Sea Church in Oak Bluffs at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 22. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Hospice of Martha's Vineyard, Box 2549, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557. Arrangements are under the care of the Chapman, Cole and Gleason Funeral Home in Oak Bluffs.
Barbara A. Johnson, 71
Was Foxboro Resident
Barbara A. Booth Johnson of Foxboro, 71, died on Thursday, Nov. 13, at the home of her daughter, Tammy, in Oak Bluffs. She was the wife of the late Robert M. Johnson Sr.
Born in Mansfield on March 25, 1932, she was a daughter of the late Arthur and Edna Matthewson Booth.
She was educated in the Mansfield schools. She worked as an attendant for Mansfield Fabric Care in Mansfield for more than 10 years before retiring. She had lived in Foxboro for the past 10 years and was formerly of Norton.
She is survived by four sons, Robert M. Johnson Jr. of Falmouth, Dale J. Johnson of Taunton, Mason E. Johnson of Fall River and Wayne P. Johnson of Norton; two daughters, Linda L. Searle of Edgartown and Tammy J. Smith of Oak Bluffs; a brother, Maurice (Pete) Booth of Attleboro; three sisters, Betty Denham, Eleanor Heap and Lillian Bajnici, all of Attleboro, six grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. She was the companion of Donald Phillips of Foxboro. She was the sister of the late Gertrude Rose and Frances Jenks.
Graveside funeral services were held Monday, Nov. 17, at 1 p.m. at the Timothy Plain cemetery in Norton. Donations in her memory may be made to Hospice of Martha's Vineyard, Box 2549, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557. Arrangements are by the Norton Memorial Funeral Home in Norton.
Doris Walker, 80
Was Veteran of World War II
Doris (Dee) Walker died on Monday, August 4, at Florida Hospital, Ormond Beach, at the age of 80 years.
She was born in Avon, Conn., and moved to Ormond Beach in 1990 from Edgartown. She was an active member of Trinity Presbyterian Church, serving on various committees and organizations, and was an ordained deacon.
She was a Navy veteran of World War II and was an avid adventurer and nature lover. She and her late husband, James Cleveland Walker, lived in Bermuda, where he retired from the United States Coast Guard; there, they captained and raced yachts. After leaving Bermuda, they moved to the Vineyard in 1974. Doris worked at the Vineyard Gazette and at Felix Neck during her years on the Island. After moving to Palm Coast, Mrs. Walker worked for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University as a receptionist at the FAA building in Palm Coast.
She is survived by a niece, Judy Hand of Daytona Beach; five nephews, Greg Hand of Princeton, N.J., James Hand of Grand Forks, N.Dak., Mike Hand of Chestnut Hill, John Walker of Santa Cruz, Calif., and Tom Walker of Wilton, Conn.
Memorial donations may be made to Felix Neck.
Edward Sheeran, 72
Was Veteran of Korean War
Edward Nathaniel Sheeran of Edgartown died unexpectedly Monday, Nov. 10, at his home on Chappaquiddick.
Mr. Sheeran was born on Feb. 5, 1931 in Medford, one of six children born to James and Amelia (Veraka) Sheeran. He was formerly married
to Diane (Caliri) Hallock.
He lived in Medford most of his life and also resided in Waltham, Sudbury and Roslindale. He has been a permanent resident of Martha's Vineyard since 1995.
He was a mechanic for Polaroid in Waltham for almost 30 years and retired in 1987. He also worked for the B&M Railroad for 10 years previously as a machinist and mechanic.
Mr. Sheeran was a Korean War veteran, serving in the Coast Guard and honorably discharged with the rank of BM third class.
He was a parishioner of St. Elizabeth's Church in Edgartown.
He enjoyed fishing, playing the organ, golfing and cooking. He volunteered with the Edgartown Senior Center and The Trustees of Reservations.
He is survived by two sons, Gerard E. Sheeran of Plymouth and Leonard A. Sheeran and his wife, Aimee, of Wilmington, N.C.; a granddaughter, Emma N. Sheeran of Wilmington, N.C.; two brothers, James Sheeran of Hawaii and Michael and his wife, Marilyn, of Belmont; three sisters, Patricia Coffey and her husband, John, of Forestdale, Theresa Desmond and her husband, Edward, of Waltham and Barbara Venditti and her husband, Richard, of Pine Hurst, N.C., and many nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his sister, Mary Ann Sheeran Shannon.
His funeral mass will be celebrated in St. Patrick's Church in Falmouth at 10 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 14. Interment will follow at the National cemetery in Bourne. Visiting hours were on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2003 at the Chapman, Cole and Gleason Funeral Home in Falmouth from 4 to 7 p.m. Donations may be made in his memory to the Edgartown Council on Aging, Edgartown, MA 02539.
Edward L. Doyle Jr.
Had Great Love for Outdoors
Edward L. Doyle Jr. died early Tuesday morning, Nov. 25, at the Harbor House Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Hingham. He was a devoted father, active community member and friend to many. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him.
Edward died at the age of 93. Born in West Roxbury, he attended Boston Latin School and was graduated from Holy Cross University in 1933. He found love twice in his life, marrying the late May (Faunce) in 1938 and the late Jean (Pendoley) in 1965.
Most of Ed's career was spent in the insurance industry. His first retirement was in 1975, from the Loyal Protective Life Insurance Company in Boston, where he served as executive vice president of marketing. Later in life he worked with the Wollaston Credit Union, Braintree Visiting Nurses and Williams Coal and Oil. He fully retired at the age of 85.
Ed had a lifelong love for the outdoors and his community. Throughout his life, he was active in the town of Braintree, serving as a town meeting member for many years, a member of the finance committee and on the high school building committee. Perhaps his most cherished commitments were to the St. Clare's Parish and the Braintree Rotary Club. In 1987 they awarded him the Paul Harris Award for Service. Mr. Doyle served as an usher, lector and founding member of the Mr. & Mrs. Club at the Parish. During his years at the Harbor House, he served as the president of the residents association. In 2002, he assisted with the submission of a state grant to purchase a computer and provide internet access to the residents of Harbor House.
When he was not serving his community, Ed enjoyed gardening and was particularly proud of his roses. He loved to spend time on the Vineyard with his grandchildren. He was a frequent visitor in Chilmark and enjoyed all the Island had to offer. He sailed aboard the schooner Shenandoah several times, most recently at the age of 85. He followed the news of the Vineyard closely from his home, always interested in Island events.
Edward L. Doyle Jr. is survived by a son, Edward, and his wife, Frances (MacQuarrie), of Dorchester; three daughters, Virginia Blodgett and husband Everett of Reading, Sarah Doyle and husband Bret Stearns of Chilmark, and Mary Anne Doyle of Weymouth, and six grandchildren, Daniel Blodgett and his wife, Kimmie, of Belmont, Kert Blodgett of Maryland, Mark Blodgett of Edgartown, Jeffrey Smith and Ava and Graham Stearns of Chilmark.
A memorial mass will be celebrated at St. Clare's in Braintree on Saturday, Nov. 29 at 11:30 a.m. Memorial gifts may be sent to the activities fund, Harbor House Nursing and Rehabilitation Facility, 11 Condito Road, Hingham, MA 02043.
