Join us in remembering the friends, family, artists and leaders the Berkshire community said goodbye to in 2022.
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HANCOCK — About 10 years ago, Kimberlee Francoeur started working as a snowmaker at Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort.
With a love of the outdoors and a background in auto mechanics, working on snow guns and preparing the mountain for skiers and snowboarders was a good job for Francoeur. She was one of the first women to work in snow-making at the resort, according to Tyler Fairbank, president of the Fairbank Group, which owns and operates the ski resort.
“Snow was her one love,” said Emily Tarjick, Francoeur’s niece. “She loved snow and snow making.”
But on Tuesday, Francoeur, 30, died as a result of injuries suffered at Jiminy Peak when the snowmobile she was operating collided with a snow groomer, according to a news release from the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office.
“According to witness statements, Francoeur was working as a snowmaker and the snowmobile she was operating was stopped on the mountain when the snow groomer operator backed into the vehicle. Francoeur succumbed to the injuries she suffered in the collision,” the release stated.
The DA’s office called the incident, which occurred shortly before 11 a.m., “an apparent accidental death.” Jiminy Peak Ski Patrol and Northern Berkshire EMS personnel attempted life-saving measures, but Francoeur was pronounced dead around 11:20 a.m.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner took custody of her body to determine the cause and manner of her death. Massachusetts State Police Cheshire barracks, Massachusetts State Police Crime Scene Services Section and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration all responded to the scene. The Berkshire State Police Detective Unit’s investigation is ongoing.
Francoeur, whose family said she went by Kimber, is remembered as someone who loved the outdoors and snow-making. The lifelong Berkshires resident grew up in Cheshire, graduated from McCann Technical School and most recently lived in Adams, according to her family.
“She was a funny young woman who will be dearly missed,” said Dave Tarjick, her brother-in-law.
In high school, she played football. “She was a strong girl,” he said. She “didn’t really take any s---,” he said.
After high school, she went to Lincoln Tech in Connecticut, according to family members. She later started working at Jiminy Peak.
“She fell in love with it there,” Dave Tarjick said.
In 2019, Francoeur reflected on her job in an interview with The Eagle. “I like being outside all the time,” she said. “It’s quiet and peaceful, especially in the middle of the night. And the job is physically demanding, but not too bad. It’s a lot of walking, eight to 12 miles every day.”
It was satisfying for her to see skiers on the more than 10 miles of terrain she and her team created, she said in 2019. “It feels really good.”
“Kimber was cherished by our entire family and team,” Fairbank said in an email to The Eagle. “What a terrible terrible accident. We are all heartbroken to say the least.”
Austin Larabee worked with Francoeur at Jiminy Peak for about six years until he left several years ago.
“I don’t really know how to comprehend it,” he said of her death. “She wasn’t sick, she wasn’t ill, she wasn’t in pain. It was just a tragedy.”
He remembered her passion for snow-making.
“She loved everything about it. The mountains were her home. If she felt lost she would say, ‘Put me back in the mountains.’” She was more often outside than at home, he said. “I can’t even count the amount of mountain tops she got to.”
Larabee described her as outgoing, kind and adventurous, and said she went skydiving for her 30th birthday. She also loved skiing, snowboarding, and hiking with her two dogs, Aspen and Oakley, Emily Tarjick said.
“She’d go all over the place hiking with the dogs and friends of hers,” Dave Tarjick added.
Emily Tarjick remembered her as someone who motivated other people, other women especially. “She was always that person who made it easy for you to do the thing you were afraid of.”
Kimber was also laid back and friendly, Dave Tarjick said.
“She had that kind of aura about her. People just loved her. She was honest and genuine,” he said. “That was her. If you were her friend, or her family, she would do anything for you.”
In a reflection on social media, one of Francoeur’s sisters, Loretta Lynn Forfa, said it was important to focus not on how Francoeur died, but how she lived. She posted a list of what her sister lived for:
“Never backing down,” part of the list reads. “Pushing a car uphill in winter in flip flops. To be strong for everyone. To get lost in the woods. To find her way there. To make Christmas cookies with her nieces and nephews. To read Stephen King … for so much more.”
PITTSFIELD — She held leadership roles in the Berkshire Jewish community when women didn’t normally serve in those positions. And, in later years, she acted as a trusted adviser to those who came after her.
Rhoda Kaminstein, of Pittsfield, who served as both president and executive director of the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires in the 1980s and also held several other prominent positions in her faith community, died peacefully in Pittsfield on Wednesday at 92.
Kaminstein, who had lived in the Berkshires since 1965, also served as president of Temple Anshe Amunim in Pittsfield twice, including a stint as the temple’s first female president from 1993-1997, and headed the Berkshire County chapter of Hadassah, an American Jewish Volunteer Women’s Organization.
“She was really the ideal kind of volunteer person who never said no,” said Judy Cook of Pittsfield, who served with Kaminstein on several committees. “When we needed a good resource, we could always count on Rhoda, because she had so much history.”
Dara Kaufman, the current executive director of the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires, which is based in Pittsfield, said Kaminstein was always available to help anyone who needed assistance.
“Throughout the years she continued to reach out to me personally and continued to be a source of advice, and a mentor, and show an interest in and support the activities of the Jewish community through the federation and Anshe Amunim, which was her home temple,” said Kaufman, who has served as the federation’s executive director since 2013. “Right up to probably a year ago, I continued to have conversations with her on the phone.
“She was smart. She was thoughtful,” Kaufman said. “I always felt that she was very observant. She picked up on many nuances and had a really great way of sharing her thoughts with people. She had strong opinions, but she had a great way of sharing her thoughts with people so they could be heard. She always thought in a big picture kind of way in our conversations.”
Born on May 2, 1929 in Ithaca, N.Y., Kaminstein worked for IBM first in the Binghamton area, then in New York City, before coming to the Berkshires. Her late husband, Philip, who died in 2019, worked at Berkshire Farm in Canaan, N.Y., and the couple met after a mutual friend set them up while she was living in New York City. The Kaminsteins, who were married for 54 years, came to Pittsfield after they married in 1965. They enjoyed traveling and collecting paperweights from their many journeys, which included sojourns to Israel, London and several U.S. National Parks.
Rhoda Kaminstein became involved in local Jewish communal affairs shortly after arriving in the Berkshires. She had served as president of Pittsfield’s chapter of Hadassah, and Temple Anshe Amunim Sisterhood, as vice president of the Western New England Region of Hadassah and had chaired the women’s division of the Jewish Welfare Fund Campaign before being named interim executive director of the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires in 1981 after her predecessor left after only six months on the job, according to Eagle files. She later received the job on a permanent basis, and served in that position until 1989.
“I think she had a very strong sense of community,” said her son, Daniel, who grew up in Pittsfield, and now lives in Allentown, N.J. “She liked to give back not just in the temple community but in the community at large.”
After retiring, Kaminstein served as a volunteer at Arrowhead, Moby-Dick author Herman Melville’s historic home in Pittsfield, which also serves as the headquarters of the Berkshire County Historical Society. When Kaminstein wasn’t serving in the community, she enjoyed playing mahjong with friends.
“It kept her active,” Daniel said. “She wasn’t one to just sit around the house.”
“She was just an amazing woman,” said Alba Passarini of Lenox, who also served with Kaminstein on various committees. “She always spoke her mind and she would tell you that. If she didn’t like something she would be the first to tell you ... She always took a leadership role and people respected her because she always did her research. When she took a position it was always very fair because she would look at both sides. If you could convince her she was wrong she would switch.”
In the 1990s, Kaminstein also played a prominent role in helping the federation assist Jewish residents of the former Soviet Union to resettle in the Berkshires, according to friends.
“We did more than most of the big federations did,” said Ellen Masters of Pittsfield, who worked with Kaminstein on that project. “Nothing was daunting to her. She never shied away from anything.”
Kaminstein came from a long line of strong women. Her mother, Belle Silverstein, lived to 106. According to an article written for Temple Anshe Amunim, her grandmother once thwarted a burglar in Syracuse, N.Y., who tried to steal her ring during a series of purse snatchings in that city. Her grandmother was willing to give up her purse, but when she yelled loudly “don’t take my ring” the thief reportedly ran away.
Kaminstein is survived by her son, his wife Wendy, their children, Stephanie and Matthew, her sister-in-law Carole, two nephews, three grand-nieces and a grand-nephew.
- By Leonard Quart
Todd Gitlin, activist, scholar and, most importantly, a social critic and writer, died earlier this year at 79. I first encountered him when I was a grad student closely reading about his connection to the early 1960s Students for a Democratic Society of the humanistic Port Huron statement.
The statement, the first draft of which was authored by Tom Hayden, elaborated a program of political and social reform based at first on nonviolence and participatory democracy. It was an idealistic document calling for a new kind of liberation, social experimentation and a more egalitarian society. The document closed with the following: “If we appear to seek the unattainable, let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable.” It was a humane, eloquent proclamation, touched by utopianism of the least airless variety and influenced by Bob Moses’ early mark on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and by intellectuals like radical sociologist C. Wright Mills, “The Lonely Crowd” co-author David Riesman and the great French novelist and essayist Albert Camus.
A bit later, Gitlin was in 1963-64 president of an SDS whose ranks swelled with protesters against the war in Vietnam, until it collapsed into self-destructive factionalism and infantile terrorism. When he was president, Gitlin assisted in organizing the first national demonstration against the war and helped lead the first protests in the United States against apartheid in South Africa.
Gitlin later also wrote the most compelling, richly textured and lucidly written book about the rise and fall of the ‘60s and the New Left, “The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage,” that was part memoir, part history and a sometimes critical examination of those activist years. His understanding of those years was heightened by his role in participating and shaping them. He knew clearly what the era’s limits were. ”A certain tendency to know-nothing leveling” and an assumption from some that “all knowledge is bankrupt.” A recklessness of spirit which sometimes “risks the destruction of liberal institutions sooner than accept less than total victory.” In education, “there are self-righteous new orthodoxies which ... do tend to stifle thought.“ “Movements that seek to represent underrepresented people too often harden into self-seeking ... the balkanization of small differences.”
Gitlin had no illusions; he knew that the leftists of the time were “in no position to take power: If we did, the only honorable sequel would be abdication.” Remembering my experiences as someone allied with the New Left and counter culture as a college teacher, Gitlin was utterly on target: We had egalitarian dreams and seductive rhetoric, but little capacity to run anything. In fact, we often had a gift for misrule.
He always wrote in this vein — as a tough-minded and sometimes caustic critic of a left that he never dropped and continued to be linked with. But he always combined skepticism with a commitment to social change, and became a social democrat — “the left-wing of the possible” rather than a believer in radical pieties or self-destructive zealotry.
He also preserved what moved him most from his SDS days: “Everything these people did was charged with intensity.” But his political passion (he was still an activist) was now bound by an incisive, critical mind that didn’t falter in its commitment to universalism. In his book “The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America is Wracked by Culture Wars” (1995), he said the left had become sidetracked by identity politics, multiculturalism and political correctness when it should have been focused on issues like economic justice. He warned then “that the left was more interested in marching on the English department” than in achieving national power. Still, he recognized that the commitment to identity politics meant that specific injustices could be confronted and it would appeal to particular segments of the population.
He had maintained the same commitments into 2020. Gitlin was among the signers of a widely debated and sometimes excoriated letter that appeared in Harper’s Magazine and denounced so-called “cancel culture” and the rush to “swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought.” Gitlin never took refuge in writing as a left academic for scholarly journals. He chose to be a public intellectual who was ready to speak at teach-ins, rallies and conferences; to draft and spread open letters and petitions about numerous causes; to participate in protests and to write op-eds and essays on a moment’s notice for magazines and newspapers. He was always deeply engaged in the political world despite having been chastened by the many times his commitments were left unrealized.
Gitlin also wrote a great deal on media in books like “Inside Prime Time,” “Media Unlimited” and “The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left.” He offered incisive insights into the way media manipulated is viewers controlling their everyday consciousness.
I knew Gitlin as a first–rate and prolific writer and a wide-ranging intellectual, but never as a person. But reading some reminiscences of friends about him after his death brought me a bit closer to his personhood, if not the fullness of his character. One friend wrote that there was “something ever-buoyant about Todd, which I associate with his extraordinary appetite for learning” and “the joy he took in thinking.”
Of the ‘60s radicals, Gitlin was one of the few who publicly continued to confront orthodoxies of every variety, and search for new ways of thinking about politics and achieving change.
- By D.R. Bahlman, Special to The Eagle
PITTSFIELD — Asked by an interviewer in 1997 what he liked best about his work as a newspaper reporter and editor, Grier Horner described it as “one of the greatest jobs for someone who doesn’t have a great attention span. Something exciting happens today and two days later, it’s something else coming up fresh.”
The frantic pace of what has come to be called the “news cycle,” and a steadfast commitment to helping people understand their times and their communities, kept Grier happily engaged for 35 years, 28 of them at this newspaper.
He retired in June 1997, and devoted his powerful creative and intellectual energies to the visual arts. He was a prolific painter: “Runway,” a show of his recent work, is mounted at Berkshire Community College. He also was the proprietor of a popular blog, “Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man.”
Accomplished as he was, he engendered respect, but it was rare for anyone meeting him for the first time to come away from the encounter feeling obliged to call him Mr. Horner. Indeed, the title almost sounds dissonant. To his many friends, colleagues and acquaintances, he was always Grier.
Early on Monday, with his family at his side, Winfield Grier Horner IV died from injuries suffered in a recent fall at his home in Pittsfield. He was 86.
He leaves his wife, the former Barbara “Babbie” Clary — they were married April 16, 1960, in Tarrytown, N.Y.; three children, Shannon Nichols, of Pittsfield, Eric Horner, of Auburn, N.H., and Michael Horner, of Lake Charles, La., and five grandchildren. Calling hours will be from 3 to 5 p.m. Thursday at the Wellington-Dwyer Funeral Home on East Street in Pittsfield.
During Grier’s tenure at the paper, The Eagle’s readers were beneficiaries of the breadth of his interests, his honesty, his empathy with the plight of others, his sense of fairness and his straight-from-the-shoulder writing style. As a reporter covering Pittsfield city government and the business beat, he never pulled a punch in print; prevarication withered before his discerning editor’s eye.
He took a collaborative approach to the delicate task of editing. He’d invite a reporter to a chair at his desk to observe changes he’d made or was contemplating, and to discuss his reasoning.
“Hey. Nice story. I’ve got it up here. I’ve made a few changes. Want to come take a look and see what you think?”
Almost invariably, the changes wrought improvements, and the reporter would leave feeling splendid.
Clarence Fanto, former Sunday editor and managing editor of The Eagle, recalled Grier’s ability to establish “rapport with folks from all walks of life, from hospital, bank and university executives to students and young people embarking on their life’s work.”
Grier inspired his colleagues to do their best work.
“He was the heart, soul and brains of the paper for many years and had a kind, generous temperament,” Fanto said of his friend of 35 years’ standing.
Grier’s page layouts foreshadowed his post-retirement career. They were characteristically stark, powerful visual magnets that drew and held readers’ attention. The layouts, which featured painstakingly chosen typefaces and “odd” column width measurements, originated on a photocopier over which Grier labored, sometimes for hours, wielding black and red Flair pens, scissors, Scotch tape and a ruler. Between bursts of inspiration, he swiped cookies from a composing room foreman’s “secret” drawer.
“Those layouts ... ” former compositor Dan Boino recalled in 1997. “I’d have to keep calling him [in the newsroom] all night to work them out.”
Grier, a native of New York City who grew up in the Hudson River Valley community of Tarrytown, was born June 30, 1935, son of Winfield G. Horner III and Elizabeth Hall Horner. He graduated from Brown University in 1957 and worked at newspapers including, for four years, The [North Adams] Transcript. He came to The Eagle in 1965.
Babbie, his high school sweetheart and a registered nurse, took a job at Berkshire Medical Center.
Several years after joining The Eagle’s reporting staff, Grier secured a six-month journalism fellowship at Stanford University. Having concluded that Eagle reporters were underpaid, he recalled, he raised the issue in a “friendly letter” to The Eagle’s late editor and publisher, Lawrence K. “Pete” Miller, and proposed the formation of an in-house union at the paper.
On his return from California, Grier organized the Eagle News Association, work that displeased some senior managers. Donald Miller, Lawrence Miller’s brother and the company’s chief financial officer, “wouldn’t speak to me,” Grier later recalled.
Ultimately, the association formally was recognized by the company “and Pete held no grudge.”
On March 27, 1978, a state law requiring doctors, teachers, social workers and other “mandated reporters” to notify authorities of suspected child abuse took effect.
Sponsored by the late state Sen. John Fitzpatrick, of Stockbridge, and state Rep. Dennis Duffin, of Lenox, the legislation came about in no small part as a result of Grier’s reporting on the case of 4-year-old Walter Gerwaski III, of Pittsfield. The boy was being beaten by his stepfather and died in late 1975. The stepfather, Calvin T. Cadwell, was convicted of second-degree murder.
Grier’s series of stories, which were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, detailed the failures of the state social service system to follow through on the boy’s day care teacher’s report of suspected abuse.
Apart from his mastery of journalism, Grier’s talents and enthusiasms extended in many directions: bicycling (he thought nothing of pedaling through 100-mile-plus excursions), cooking (his jambalaya was nothing short of superb), small-boat sailing and painting.
“To me, painting is magic performed not with a wand but with a brush,” he once said.
As fine a writer as Grier was, he was hopeless at spelling. He freely admitted this and offered no excuses to counter the razzing he got for being the editor who can’t spell.
Late one night, with deadline looming, Grier was struggling with a headline over a story about then-North Adams Mayor John Barrett III and his often-bitter negotiations with the city’s police union.
Desperate to fill the (odd-measure) column with a double-deck headline that conveyed the mayor’s determination to prevail, Grier settled on folding the expression “going for the jugular” into the headline.
What he intended to refer to was a vein in the neck. What he got was a pain in the neck: He wrote “juggler.” Spell check passed it, and nobody caught it.
If switchboards still lit up, The Eagle’s would have been ablaze the following morning; Grier occasionally was ribbed about the incident for years afterward. He never minded.
A verse by Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet, might stand as an invitation to Grier’s admirers.
“Out beyond ideas, of right-doing and wrongdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
This story has been modified to correct the year of Grier Horner's retirement.
Douglas Trumbull, the Oscar-winning special effects wizard who called New Marlborough home, has died
- By Felix Carroll, The Berkshire Eagle
NEW MARLBOROUGH — With a curiosity fixed toward the stars since childhood, he became the lead mastermind behind the trippy finale for “2001: A Space Odyssey,” the eerie atmospherics of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and the very birth of the universe that opens “The Tree of Life.”
A self-described “mad engineer,” Douglas Trumbull, the special effects expert and director who left Hollywood in the 1980s to perfect his craft and pursue his technological passions here in the Berkshires, died Monday. He was 79.
His daughter, Amy Trumbull, confirmed her father’s death on Facebook, saying he had a “two-year battle with cancer, a brain tumor and a stroke.”
She said: “He was an absolute genius and a wizard, and his contributions to the film and special effects industry will live on for decades and beyond. … My sister Andromeda and I got to see him on Saturday and tell him that we love him, and we got to tell him to enjoy and embrace his journey into the Great Beyond.”
Trumbull, who shared Oscar nominations for best visual effects for “Close Encounters,” “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and “Blade Runner,” moved to the Berkshires in the 1980s, settling on a 50-acre estate in New Marlborough that he made into a home and a state-of the-art workspace, Trumbull Studios.
He shared with The Eagle in 1988 the reason for settling here.
“The kind of work I like to do is experimental, and it takes a lot of time,” he said. “In Los Angeles, the entire business is geared for mass production, television shows, commercials, feature films. … I’ve been looking for an opportunity to slow down and have the chance to experiment inexpensively.”
For a brief time, he ran Berkshire Motion Picture in the former Monument Mills complex in Housatonic, where he and a devoted team created Universal Studios’ “Back to the Future: The Ride” simulator.
In addition to his work with legendary filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg, Trumbull was the go-to guy for CBS, in 1969, when it was preparing to provide live television coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Those were the days before computer graphics.
He devised a newfangled and ingenious graphic display system — it was dubbed “HAL 10,000,” in tribute to HAL 9000, the sentient computer system in “2001” — that included nine projectors capable of displaying, by remote control, any number of variations of diagrams and flight simulations.
“He was a giant in the industry, but he was such a generous soul to everybody who was lucky enough to get in his orbit,” said Kelley Vickery, founder and artistic director of the Berkshire International Film Festival, for which Trumbull shared his time and talents. “He loved nothing more than taking people around his property and sharing his knowledge and love of film and what it is and what it could be. He was a big influence for our film festival, and we’re very grateful.”
“In truth, Doug is the reason we have such a highly developed community of film industry talent in the Berkshires,” said Diane Pearlman, executive director of the Berkshire Film and Media Collaborative, for which Trumbull served as a board member. “Doug taught us to think outside of the box ... to always look to create new ways for films to connect with an audience — whether through higher frames rates, higher resolution filming or incredible visual effects. He pushed the envelope his entire career.”
Trumbull, born April 8, 1942, in Los Angeles, quickly became enamored of rocketry, science fiction, and thoughts of space and of alien life. His mother was an artist. His father was a mechanical engineer for Lockheed Martin and had a brief stint working in Hollywood, including helping to make sure those malevolent monkeys in “The Wizard of Oz” flew their approved flight path.
When Trumbull was a boy, he veered toward fantasy, art and a flight path no one had traveled before.
“My mother died when I was 7, and I was a forlorn kid,” Trumbull told The Eagle in an interview at his New Marlborough home in 2019. “I had a fantasy life emboldened by science fiction — the books of Robert Heinlein and movies such as ‘Destination Moon.’”
After high school, with a portfolio stuffed with his own drawings of space stations and alien planets, he landed a job with NASA, providing illustrations for promotional films of its space program. That led to work on the film “To the Moon and Beyond,” produced by Graphic Films Corp. Shown at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, the film caught the eye of Kubrick and the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark.
In 1966, Trumbull, at age 23, was off to England, working with Kubrick on “2001.” The assignment included building miniature models. Then, for the famous Stargate sequence, Trumbull created a new mechanical process called “slit scan photography.”
“I first just tried to make myself useful to him,” he told The Eagle. By the end of production, Trumbull was a visual effects supervisor. The film took nearly three years of Trumbull’s life and helped revolutionize filmmaking.
In the years to come, Spielberg, Ridley Scott and Terrence Malick would come calling. Trumbull also directed the dystopian sci-fi film “Silent Running” (starring Bruce Dern) and “Brainstorm” (starring Natalie Wood, in her last role).
In recent years, from his shooting stage, workshops and production offices in New Marlborough, he was “working on the future of cinema” and “the future of entertainment,” he had told The Eagle. He developed a high-resolution, 120-frames-per-second 3D filmmaking technology called Magi, which uses a curved screen that he also developed.
In 2012, he received the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, a special technical Oscar for his contributions to the industry. Indeed, Trumbull invented and patented dozens of film tools and techniques, from motion-control photography to miniature compositing.
With regard to intelligent life beyond Earth, Trumbull told The Eagle he considered himself among the “serious and committed believers.” He was friends with the French “ufologist” and astronomer Jacques Vallee, who served as inspiration for Francois Truffaut’s character in Spielberg’s “Close Encounters.”
Though much of his life was spent on matters beyond this planet, Trumbull deeply was committed to the people and place where he called home. He told The Eagle in 2019, “I came to the Berkshires because it’s home to a lot of creative people — writers, artists, musicians — as good as anything you’ll find in LA.”
In addition to his two daughters from a previous marriage, he is survived by his wife, Julia, her three children, and many grandchildren.
The family said in a statement that, “In Trumbull’s memory and his love of the giant screen, we hope that you will support your local theaters.”
- By Francesca Paris, The Berkshire Eagle
Dr. Paul Farmer, a North Adams native and co-founder of the global organization Partners in Health, died Monday in Rwanda. He was 62.
He died unexpectedly in his sleep, the organization said Monday.
Farmer was a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and chief of the division of global health equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He was a physician and anthropologist, best known for bringing high-quality medical care to people who needed it most across the world.
Farmer was born in North Adams in 1959, according to the book “Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World,” an account of his life and work by journalist Tracy Kidder. The family moved out of Massachusetts when Farmer was young, first to Alabama, then to Florida.
“His family had deep roots in the community,” said state Rep. John Barrett III. “Everyone knew the Farmers.”
Farmer spent his life trying to stop infectious diseases and deliver medical care in under-resourced places, such as Haiti, Russia, Peru, Cuba and parts of the U.S. His successes inspired and paved the way for others, say the people who remember him.
“He was a great doctor,” Kidder told The Eagle. “He built hospitals. He made the world recognize the fact that you could treat AIDS, you could treat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, in desperately poor places. I think his dream was a movement that would make sure that everybody had good health.”
As a college graduate and later as a doctor, Farmer built up a medical infrastructure in Cange, a remote village in the central plateau of Haiti. After receiving a medical degree from Harvard University, he traveled nonstop between his job in Boston and his work in Haiti, where he would scale mountains to visit patients at home in remote areas.
With friends and funding, he built his community clinic into a large-scale hospital system and founded Partners in Health, a Boston-based organization that now treats millions of patients across the world.
Eunice Tassone, a North Adams native who leads the nonprofit Haiti Plunge, has spent decades traveling with high school students on service trips to Haiti. She would catch up with Farmer, a friend, on airplanes and in airports going to and from the country.
“He’s going to be a tremendous loss to the global health world,” she said. “He did amazing things. You can literally visualize Paul, with his stethoscope, running up and down the mountains.”
Farmer was tireless in his belief that people were capable of caring for themselves if given the right tools, she says. When HIV struck, he brought lifesaving drugs into the mountains and taught village health workers how to distribute them so that patients could take their medications at the right time of day.
Days after the 2010 earthquake, Farmer returned to Haiti with a team of volunteers to provide emergency aid. Three years later, Partners in Health opened a 300-bed, solar-powered hospital in Mirebalais, north of Port-au-Prince.
“He built the most wonderful hospital,” said Tassone. “It’s magnificent. It was a statement to the rest of the world that people of any category of life could have access to the best of health care.”
Farmer criticized developed nations, including the U.S., for failing to provide decent health care to their residents, she says.
“He wrote a great deal about systemic injustice,” said Tassone. “He nails affluent countries that could provide better care for our own people. He was very critical of the insurance companies, the drug companies. … He didn’t spend a whole lot of time here either, cause he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”
He would return from abroad in predictable intervals to fulfill his teaching duties and give lectures, in turn inspiring a generation of doctors, she says. Then he would get on yet another plane. He worked nonstop and wrote books in the hours he could spare from teaching and seeing patients.
“I’m surprised he died in his sleep,” said Tassone. “Because he rarely slept.”
For Kidder, traveling with the tireless doctor remains “the most exhilarating experience of my life.”
Kidder sees in Farmer’s legacy something deeply hopeful: A sense that the doctor forced the world to acknowledge that even the most challenging global health problems are not insurmountable.
“I really hate the thought of the world without him,” said Kidder. “I know there are many people who are just grief struck. I share their sadness. He did a lot, he could have done a lot more. But that’s not the whole story. It is possible for other people to go on. It is possible to carry on his work.”
Farmer leaves behind his wife, Didi Bertrand Farmer, and his three children.
- By Jim Therrien, Bennington Banner
POWNAL, Vt. — John C. Tietgens, a businessman and horse owner who purchased the former Green Mountain Race Track at auction in 1993, hoping to revive horse racing there, died Sunday, at 98.
Tietgens, of Clarksburg, also owned the former J.T. Bus Lines, providing bus service to school districts for 58 years.
Clarksburg Town Administrator Carl McKinney remembers riding those buses to school as a kid.
“He was a pillar of the community, a generous gentleman,” McKinney said. “I have nothing but good things to say about him.”
State Rep. John Barrett III, former mayor of North Adams, said Tietgens was a generous, active member of the community, which was reflected in his dealings with the school district.
Barrett said Tietgens would stand firm on the contract price for bus service for the schools. Then, "he would turn around and donate generously to the school department. He was a good businessman and a gentleman in every sense of the word."
Tietgens only reluctantly gave up on his dream of reviving horse racing in Pownal in 2004, when he sold the 144-acre property in Pownal to a group of investors.
“John was a great patriot and family man, and the kind of guy you like to meet in your life,” said Jim Winchester, owner of a store across Route 7 from the track site.
Winchester moved to Pownal during the heyday of thoroughbred and harness racing at Green Mountain, which opened in 1963, working there as the race starter. He later opened Winchester’s Store as the track shifted to greyhound racing in the late 1970s and later closed entirely.
Tietgens, despite failing eyesight, had remained healthy until recently, Winchester said, adding, “His mind was sharp; he was in great shape.”
Auction surprise
Winchester described the 1993 foreclosure auction at the racetrack with Tietgens and three bidders from Connecticut, who were the only ones prepared to put up a required $25,000 down payment if successful in the bidding.
The Rooney family, owners of the Pittsburgh Steelers, had purchased the track from the original ownership group during the 1970s and had set up a greyhound track in the middle of the horse track, eventually switching to dog racing only.
The family had paid a reported $8.5 million for the track in 1973 and “expected it would sell for more,” Winchester said.
Instead, Tietgens entered the high bid of $250,000 and became the owner. That figure was as high as Tietgens was prepared to go, Winchester said, but no one bid any higher.
After the auction, Tietgens expressed shock to reporters that he was the winning bidder. When the auctioneer tried to open bidding at $1 million, there was no response, and no response at $500,000 or $300,000, before Tietgens bid $200,000.
Another bidder offered $225,000, but Tietgens went up to $250,000, and there were no other bids.
Tietgens then tried several times, with a number of potential partners, to restore horse racing, in part because he had been a longtime owner/trainer with horses at the Pownal track.
“John had some good horses,” Winchester said. “There were eight or 10 good horsemen in the North Adams area at the time.”
Casino bid
The horse racing plan that garnered the most attention, statewide and nationally, was Tietgens’ proposal during the mid-1990s to partner with Eric Nelson, of Las Vegas, to create a facility offering casino gambling and racing.
Stiff opposition from anti-gambling advocates in the area, many Vermont lawmakers and, finally, from then-Gov. Howard Dean killed the proposal.
Other proposals over the next few years seemed to come close to reviving Green Mountain as a horse track before collapsing over regulatory, financing or other obstacles.
“I think the times were just against him,” Winchester said. “Tracks were closing up, and states were getting into gambling.”
Despite the failure to restore racing, “John did a lot of good for Pownal,” Winchester said.
During his tenure owning the property, he said, a Lollapalooza concert in 1996 drew about 30,000 people to the area; large-scale bingo events to benefit the Shriners charities were well-attended, as were antique auto shows.
Several events planned under recent ownership groups have failed to materialize, including a 2015 rock concert that was canceled shortly before the date.
A 2010 proposal involving a planned 29-megawatt biomass power generating plant was abandoned amid fierce opposition from area residents and residents from nearby Berkshire County, over projected stack emission problems.
In addition, the imposing vacant former track grandstand was left a blackened hulk after a nighttime fire in 2020.
Born in 1923
According to an obituary, Tietgens was born in North Adams in 1923 and went on to serve in the Army during World War II, in the European and Pacific theaters.
He married his late wife, the former Ellen G. Shields, in 1944, and they were married just over 73 years when she died 2017.
The Paciorek Funeral Home in Adams is in charge of arrangements.
NORTH ADAMS — On Thursday, friends and family of Dennis Bernardi gathered to mourn the loss of a man described as hardworking and giving, ever liable to help when someone needed a hand.
“He was always someone who would greet you with a smile, and was always willing to help people,” said North Adams Mayor Jennifer Macksey.
Bernardi, 71, was a contractor and carpenter who purchased, rehabilitated and sold homes in the North Adams area.
Macksey said she knew Dennis for “almost my whole life,” and remembered him as a local contractor who seemed to always have that hard-to-find item for a household project on hand.
“If you ever needed something that you couldn’t find in the store, you could ask Dennis, and he had it somewhere,” she said. “He was a collector of anything you needed for a house.”
Dave Thayer said he lives nearby Bernardi’s home in Clarksburg, and worked with him on homes, specializing in installing insulated concrete floors. Bernardi would travel around scouting for materials for his home renovations — and when he acquired a critical mass of items, he purchased another fixer-upper and went right back to work.
“We can bump into each other any time to sit there and start talking, pick up where we left off,” he said. “He was just a good friend.”
The two would banter on job sites, Thayer said, adding that Bernardi owned property around the city of North Adams.
Sometimes, also working on Bernardi’s projects would be 36-year-old William Gingerich.
Gingerich worked for Bernardi “on and off for a couple of years,” Thayer said. Bernardi was known to offer a helping hand to those facing hard times, he said, and had offered Gingerich, whose family said he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a place to stay on his Clarksburg property.
“And he always helped people down on their luck,” said Thayer. “He [Dennis] was trying to help him [Gingerich] out, give him a place off the street.”
In a turn of events that shocked many, Gingerich is now charged with murder and kidnapping in connection with Bernardi’s death, according to the Berkshire District Attorney’s office.
Police performed a well- being check on Bernardi on Feb. 23 after it was noticed that Bernardi’s truck was missing from his driveway for a few days, and authorities found him at home deceased.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined the cause of his death was homicide. Bernardi is survived by three siblings, including a twin sister, as well as the numerous nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, his obituary states.
Authorities with a warrant arrested Gingerich in the western New York town of Lewiston, along the Canadian border. His first court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday in Northern Berkshire District Court, where he’s set to be arraigned on the charges.
The DA’s office says it is withholding details about the crime until that arraignment.
Friend of the family Jeannie Poplaski filtered out of Flynn & Dagnoli Funeral Home on Thursday, where cars crowded the parking lot as friends and family of Bernardi came to pay their respects.
Echoing others who reflected on their memories of Bernardi, Poplaski said he was friendly and thoughtful, and forgiving.
“He was a guy who would do anything for anyone, and he wasn’t judgmental,” she said.
Jack O'Brien never stopped playing.
If there was one way to describe the former Monument Mountain Spartan on the football field, that would be it. Despite the fact that he injured his shoulder just a couple of weeks into his senior season in 2019. No matter what aspect of life it might have been, he lived it to the fullest.
This past March, Jack O’Brien passed away. The former Monument Mountain football captain was riding snowmobiles in the Adirondacks with a couple of friends and his snowmobile left a groomed trail and crashed into trees. He was only 20 years old.
The Monument Mountain football team has dedicated this season to O’Brien and on Friday, the team had a special halftime ceremony to honor him and his family. Not just his passing, but to commemorate the type of person and player he was to both the team and the people around him.
When it comes to O’Brien as a player, the thing coaches and players will always remember about him was his dedication to the team above all else.
“He persevered through that [senior year shoulder] injury and he did everything he could to keep playing,” said Monument offensive coordinator Chris D’Aniello. “We tried braces, we got physical therapy, he really had a torn apart shoulder to the point where it was so bad he was literally in pain but he just wouldn’t take no for an answer. He wouldn’t stop, he wouldn’t quit, he didn’t want to let his teammates down. He was that type of person and that was his take on life too.”
“Biggest heart, I remember the first year I coached, and he’s one of the biggest guys out there and he’s just a sophomore,” recalled Monument head coach Chris Tucci. “And I’m coaching the linebackers and he’s still a new player. So I’m coaching him up and he’s just not getting physical enough. So at the end of the practice I go, ‘You know Jack, I’m really disappointed, I really wanted you to be more physical, I expected more out of you, you’re playing really tentatively.’
“And I didn’t think much of the conversation, and he took it so hard. He came in practice the next day, he was crying, he was so concerned about doing a good job on the field, like he really wanted to be a great teammate, a great player. It’s such a gift as a coach to have someone who has such a heart and love for the sport. That they are so committed. He put his body on the line but he put his heart on the line, too.”
And it wasn’t just about playing hard, although that’s a part of it. But the way he interacted with the younger players on the team when he was a senior left a lasting impression on the current crop of Monument seniors.
“I can remember vividly [as a freshman], his mom giving me a ride home and her saying how he liked me and I remember that being the biggest deal to me,” said Monument senior captain Andrew Albert. “He always welcomed us with open arms and introduced us to everybody. Hung out with us after school even [when we were] at that younger age and it meant the world. That was the guy you looked up to. And to get to spend time with him meant the world.”
“He’s a great leader, and he was kind of like, The senior, he was the one I really looked up to and I think a lot of other guys did, too,” added fellow senior captain Grant Chase. “I remember a captains' practice, before the season even started that he was running. I think there were probably like eight of us there. So we just did like a four-on-four game. And I think he just said something like, that I was fast and that made my day. I was so happy that he said that.”
“Coming into play varsity football as a freshman is a scary thing and having a captain and a leader like Jack to take you under his wing and guide you on what it’s all about is something really special,” senior captain Nick Henderson said. “I wouldn’t have picked anyone else in the world to lead me other than him. Just the kind of, put the team on your back mentality that Jack had really. Just I think it formed me into the football player that I am today. He taught me so much, I looked up to him so much, just everything he did for me, I can’t thank him enough.”
O’Brien wore No. 36 and on the field there was a large No. 36 with pyrotechnics at halftime. His jersey was also carried out for the opening coin toss and his family was honored as well.
“Planning on doing everything we can do to make the family feel like they’re part of this football team,” said Albert on Wednesday. “Which they very much are. Try and put his legacy in the best light we can and we intend on doing that.”
Gone but not forgotten is often uttered when someone passes and for good reason. When it comes to O’Brien, however, it isn’t just the memories and interactions people had with him that won’t be forgotten.
It’s the way he treated the freshmen on the football team as a senior that showed them how to be good teammates and upperclassmen. That they carried on his legacy, and that hopefully will pass on to the next generation of Monument football players, and will keep being passed on.
“These guys here are the same way,” explained D’Aniello. “That’s transcended onto them, they've acquired that same mentality, to put the team on their backs. They really are dedicated athletes so what they've learned from Jack they’re carrying that along. That’s a lifelong message.”
“Jack’s legacy is, love your teammate,” Tucci said.
BECKET — Author, journalist and book reviewer Richard “Dick” Lipez, who wrote editorials for The Berkshire Eagle for many years and was a member of the newspaper’s advisory board, died of cancer at his home in Becket on Wednesday. He was 83.
Lipez had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in April, according to sculptor Joe Wheaton, his husband. They had been together for 32 years.
In the early 1960s, Lipez, a native of Lock Haven, Pa., served in the Peace Corps, where he taught school in Ethiopia, and later worked as a Peace Corps program evaluator based in Washington. He originally came to the Berkshires to work for an anti-poverty agency because he was tired of living in the city, Wheaton said.
“He was totally unqualified for the job, but he talked his way into it,” said Wheaton, who met Lipez in the Berkshires. “He is somebody who has always been an advocate for the underrepresented.”
Lipez, one of the founding members and a former president of the Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition, was a prolific writer. He wrote numerous books under the pseudonym Richard Stevenson, ‘“which is his middle name,” Wheaton said. They included the Donald Strachey private eye series, which is being filmed by Here TV, a gay television network. He co-authored “Grand Scam” with Peter Stein, and contributed to “Crimes on the Scene: A Mystery Guide for the International Traveler.”
Wheaton said Lipez wrote about 16 murder mysteries, based on Strachey, who was a gay character. They started in the pre-AIDs days, when things were “pretty wild,” Wheaton said.
“They really chronicled the issues of gay life,” Wheaton said. “I think they are something that people will read for anthropological or sociological [reasons]. They really chronicle what was going on at the time.
“He was a real mensch,” Wheaton said. Mensch is a Yiddish word often used to describe a person of integrity and honor. “He spoke up when there was an injustice. ... He was full of conviction and always ready to jump in and get to work.”
His reporting, reviews and fiction appeared in many publications, including The Boston Globe, Newsday, The Progressive, The Washington Post and Harper’s, in addition to The Eagle. He also reviewed books for The Post, and was known for his unique style.
“He was damn funny as a writer,” Wheaton said.
Retired former Eagle editorial page editor Bill Everhart said the paper’s late managing editor, Don MacGillis, brought Lipez to the newspaper as a freelance editorial writer in the early 1990s.
“He was a specialist, primarily in foreign affairs,” Everhart said, “and he would occasionally write about national politics.
“He was very knowledgeable, extremely knowledgeable about foreign affairs in particular,” Everhart said. “He was very well-informed, a very graceful writer and extremely reliable.
“He was also a good guy,” he added. “Very low key, with a dry sense of humor.”
Lipez’s editorials for The Eagle did not require much editing.
“They were always on time and never needed any work,” Everhart said. “They went in the paper the way they came in.
“He was a total pro as a writer. Just a consummate pro,” he said. “There was never anything in his editorials that was extraneous or redundant or unclear.”
“He was a wonderful character of expansive interests and great imagination,” said fellow Berkshire Eagle advisory board member Linda Greenhouse, via email. “The kind of person who actually ‘knew everyone.’”
Lipez grew up in Lock Haven, which is in central Pennsylvania, “kind of in the middle of nowhere,” Wheaton said. His father was a sportscaster who ran the local radio station. One of his relatives was a judge.
He attended Pennsylvania State University, but left to join the Peace Corps in 1962, after a recruiter visited the school.
“He was among the first group to go into Ethiopia,” Wheaton said. “He was an English teacher there for two years.”
Living in Ethiopia was kind of a “formative experience for him,” Wheaton said. “It changed his life in a profound way.
“Outside of Manhattan and Philadelphia, he had never really been anywhere else except Lock Haven,” Wheaton said. “Here was a very developing country.”
Wheaton said he recently received an email from the daughter of Worku Sharew, one of Lipez’s former students, who had been a shepherd in Ethiopia. Lipez and his wife, Hedy, who also served in the Peace Corps, brought Sharew to the United States to go to school.
“Dick recognized this kid was smart and curious,” Wheaton said.
That student’s daughter recently graduated from Smith College in Northampton and is at the Cleveland Clinic, studying to be a brain surgeon, “because there are no brain surgeons in Ethiopia,” Wheaton said.
“That was the impact that this one guy had who left town and took an interest in the world outside,” Wheaton said.
Lipez is survived by his daughter, Sydney, an elementary school teacher in Scarsdale, N.Y., and his son, Zack, a writer who lives in New York City. Hedy Lipez died from COVIID-19 last year, according to Wheaton.
- By Ruth Bass
RICHMOND — The Berkshires lost two remarkable men this month, two people whose lives were lived below celebrity radar but who had impact on a wide circle of people, their friends and people they never met. They were Dick Lipez, of Becket, and Ken Keehnle, mostly of Pittsfield.
They impacted me, each in his own way, but both through thinking and writing. They probably were never in the same room at the same time, but each was free to think out loud with their columns in the Berkshire Sampler where I was the editor for 10 years in the ’70s and ’80s.
College educated, Peace Corps volunteer, community activist and novelist, Dick had a special, multi-faceted view of life. He wrote a column that was both intellectual and hilarious, emanating from a mind that produced deep thoughts in a readable way, often injected with his unique twists of humor. He could make a reader think and laugh out loud.
Very tall and deep-voiced, Dick was always worth seeking out in a group, just to hear what he had to say about anything on a given day. His Sampler columns — his first writings for The Eagle — started before I worked there and were an editor’s joy. No mistakes, nothing to fix, crisp and thoughtful and often funny.
I still remember one about the couple, written way before anyone talked about helicopter parents, who kept their toddler in a giant Tupperware container to make sure the world didn’t hurt him in any way. One senses that his two talented offspring probably grew up in a less constrictive atmosphere than that.
We were email, Christmas card, casual encounter, longtime friends, and I treasured his support of my writing, actually saving some of his notes. Still, I learned many new facets of Dick’s life from the recent Eagle story and the obituary, both wonderfully written. But I would disagree that his gay detective was perhaps his greatest legacy.
Nothing will last longer than the effect he had on hundreds of people who considered him a friend, plus those he helped to a better life or inspired to think, always without seeking a credit. One notable example was when, with no fanfare, he and his husband, Joe Wheaton, gave a home to a terminally ill man and took care of him through his last days.
And then there was Kenny, author of What Ken Thinks in the Berkshire Sampler. Blue collar, semipro football player, coach of kids’ sports, library patron, lover of Italian opera and pressman at The Eagle, Kenny turned out print daily in the bowels of the newspaper and was put in print weekly from the third floor of the same building. A fascinating mix of a guy who adored his wife, admired women and teased us about his unabashed like for “watching the girls walk by” when pressmen sat on the ledge of the Eagle Street building during break.
He was not an editor’s joy from the standpoint of fixing. Ken’s copy came in written in pencil on yellow lined paper. No one else was allowed to submit copy like that. Sometimes we had to consult on identifying a particular word because Kenny apparently missed the Palmer penmanship drills that so many of us endured in school. In addition, syntax and spelling and punctuation required attention.
But we loved his thoughts, whether we agreed with them or not. And he had an audience. So we edited, cautious to resist “improving” the column and concentrating on making certain that it was Kenny’s voice, not the editor’s, that could be heard on the page.
We must have succeeded because he would pop in the next week, not complaining about what we edited, and hand us his latest. His column and his visits had an impact on us beyond his life view. He was at ease in a roomful of college degrees and left us a little more humble about the real value of those. His self-education and willingness to put his thoughts on the line had an impact on us.
Two good men. Gone and not forgettable.
- By Larry Parnass, The Berkshire Eagle
PITTSFIELD — Miguel Angel Estrella, the 22-year-old aspiring tradesman shot and killed a week ago by Pittsfield police, will be buried Saturday after an invitation-only funeral.
On Friday afternoon, people came through a Pittsfield funeral home to say goodbye to the man they knew as "Miggy."
In time, a report will render the official judgment as to whether Pittsfield police were justified in shooting Estrella twice in the chest late March 25 outside his home in the Bartlett School Apartments on Onota Street, after twice being called to reports of a distraught man with a knife. Estrella was in obvious distress after drinking and had been cutting himself.
People who knew and loved Estrella can’t believe his life ended this way.
Estrella’s sister, Elina, has started a crowdfunding campaign in her brother’s memory, dubbed "Long Live Miggy." On it, she writes: “Miguel was a big part of his community. He was loved by many, he had so many plans. It’s a tragedy that could have been prevented. … Everyone involved who failed him in his time of need will feel their wrongdoing.”
“Mental health crisis should not be a death sentence,” she wrote. Estrella is also survived by his mother, Marisol Estrella, and a brother, Jean Carlos, as well as his girlfriend, Daneya Falwell.
For the past week, Estrella’s friends, mentors and co-workers have struggled to speak of him in the past tense, as they shared stories about a person they describe as warm-hearted, playful, generous, respectful and community-minded.
His closest friends, when asked what people should know about Estrella’s life, said this: “Your past doesn’t define you.”
Here are some of their stories.
Robert Jefferson, a former outreach worker for the Pittsfield Community Connection program who had known Estrella for years and once had temporary custody of him:
He was like my kid. I spent more time with him than I did my own kid. Up until recently, you know, he still called me every day. He was a good kid. He's just misunderstood a lot of the time. People like him get swept under the rug a lot. They forget about who they are and what they need — stuff like that.
Even in trouble, I was the go-to. I’d just go with him to hell and back. And I'd go back with him. He shouldn't be gone right now. That's a fact. I just wish, I'd had enough time to get to him. But unfortunately, I didn't.
Debbie Vall, a community member and friend of Estrella:
He was going to be going to McCann [Technical School in North Adams] this year because he wanted to be an electrician. That has been his dream for as long as I can remember.
He's not just a statistic. He's just not another Hispanic man. He is a person. He had hopes and he had dreams and he had plans for his future. And he was going after those plans with full force. He had faced a lot of adversity and he had a lot of barriers, a lot of barriers. But he struggled and he was always smiling.
Tayshia Hoisington is the sister of Estrella’s girlfriend, Daneya Falwell:
When I first met Miggy, oh my god was he loud! I looked at my sister, like, “Who is this?” But my family learned to love him, like they all love him. He comes around every single holiday. He made my family laugh.
Miggy was hands down the funniest person. You could be in the worst mood and he'll find something to just light you up. What I'm gonna miss the most is every single morning him and my sister used to wake me up just laughing about nothing – about nothing.
When I first first met him, all I did was shake my head. He had a lot of energy. But as years went by, I've seen him grow a whole lot. The Miggy we know to this day, that was not him a couple years ago. Like he's changed a lot for the better. He had a plan, a set goal, and he was ready to move forward. Which is why he motivated me a lot.
He realized he's getting older and he wants to accomplish things. He was working really hard, even with my sister, and helping motivate her. He was taken away too soon.
Daneya Falwell, who lived with Estrella as his girlfriend, said he had been suffering from depression:
Everything he's been through, losing a lot of friends. He was talking about losing his friends. He wasn't happy. He just struggled with a lot. He wasn't hurting anybody at all. He wasn't a threat to nobody ... but himself.
We were going to buy a house. We were going to have a vacation in May. We can't do none of that. He was my future. He helped me get a job. He said even if you don’t, I got the bills, don't worry about it. … He had just started living.
Carolyn Valli, CEO of Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity, where Estrella worked after graduating from a construction training program:
We all know him in many-faceted ways. And all of them are good.
I've known him for over seven years. He has gone through ups and downs, but every single time there's been a down, he's come to me and said, “I'm going through this" or "I'm going through that." "What do you think about this?” And he's always been resilient and putting together a plan about how to overcome that.
About six months ago, he was just going to pick somebody up at his house and his car got shot up. They called the police. Miguel told me this firsthand. He said, “The first thing [the police] said to me is, ‘Miguel, we thought you got out of that life.’ And he said ‘I'm not in that life.’” He was the one who was victimized, yet he was being villainized. I can only imagine if that bias came to the site [of the shooting] on Friday.
I tried calling the police department [at the time] and their big concern was, “Can you get him to tell us who did it?” And he was like, “I won't do that.” Because we all know what that means in the street, that means you will be dead.
So he was not going to do that. He came to me probably two weeks later, because he kept hearing from whoever it was that shot up the car. He said [the shooter] was going to go to [a Habitat work site] one day. And he said to me, “I can't put you guys at risk. I didn't do anything wrong, but I'm not gonna have any of you die.” Because, you know, that's the person he was – that he cared more about other people than he did for his own safety.
When I got the call [that he'd been shot], I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't understand how if somebody was self-harming themselves, why you didn't take them and bring them to Jones [the psychiatric department at Berkshire Medical Center]. That's the piece that I don't get at all.
They're saying that he was advancing on police. I absolutely do not believe that. Because that is not who he is.
Gail Krumpholz, a community member who has known Estrella since he was young:
What a wonderful human being this young man was; his life was cut too short. We want to make sure, all of us, that he is presented as the wonderful human being that we all knew, and were working with, from the age of 15 or 16 years old.
Kendell Thompson, a friend of Estrella:
He overcame a lot of adversity. You know, since he was 14, he changed his life around a lot. He got his GED. Went on to a program out in Boston. Got his life together. Came back here. He got himself together and did great things. He was a great human being. He didn't deserve that.
Always did good things for others – and the community. He did good for his community. He'd pick up community service at the schools. Always paid rent for his mother.
John Schnauber, a social worker who had known Estrella for seven years:
He did a lot of jobs for the community. He worked at the farmers market. Anytime that he was needed by any of his friends, and by the community itself, he was there. All we had to do was ask him. I mean, he had a beautiful soul. He really did.
He had life situations that led him in different ways. And honestly, it's just the way the world is nowadays. It's the way that he was left to grow up. The system is so unjust. This was almost a foreseeable outcome.
These kids walk home from school getting guns pulled out on them. They are not safe. And there's not [anything] being done about the kids needing help. They need a home, they need somebody to care, that's what they need — and nobody in this community will give them a place to even be safe.
People go to City Council meetings and they ask for programs for their children or a drop-in center. I've been to them recently when [officials are] walking around and saying "We’ve got $31 million" or whatever, "to hand out." But not for that. Not for them.
Orrin Powell, a human services worker, now employed by 18 Degrees:
There was a change in Miggy. He wanted better. And he did better. He chose to want to improve his life with work, with aspirations of getting a house, improving his credit. That's the biggest thing for me, the change in him. He wanted it and he was seeking it out. He was driving his own vehicle towards success. And that's not an easy feat. Change is not easy. And he was changing every day.
Dubois Thomas, Habitat staffer who worked with Estrella:
I had some dealings with Miguel over the last several years. Miguel understood that it wasn't just a light switch to flip, and then life would just change.
He knew it was going to be a day-to-day thing. It's just a travesty that for young men that look like Miguel and I, a bad day or a mistake is the end of your life. He didn't deserve that. I'm at a complete loss in my imagination for how that could have gone down that way.
Rachel Hanson, a licensed social worker who had known Estrella since he was a young teen participating in the Pittsfield Community Connection mentoring program:
Miguel was a good person. He was there for his community. He was there for his friends. He worked really hard. He shoveled driveways for the elderly.
He overcame so much adversity. There were things that he went through in his life and there were ways that he struggled. He was a good person and he cared about other people deeply. It's tragic, what happened to him. Absolutely tragic. It shouldn't have happened.
He struggled in different ways, at different times, for different periods of time. There were times that he was in really dark places. And he had people around him that were able to help him – his friends, you know, people he could call on.
He always came back to a point where he knew he wanted to be successful. He knew he wanted to get out. It wasn't just for him. It was for him, his friends, his family. His dream wasn't just solo. He was a natural born leader.
He wanted it for everyone. He worked so hard to be able to be successful. And he touched so many people and allowed them to believe in themselves. He’s going to leave a hole in our lives. Forever, forever. And it's gonna affect so many people.
Miguel brought people around to the [PCC] program. He realized that there were a lot of people who could benefit. We had dinners where we had kids in the community come over and serve each other food – and not only do that, but make the food together, as a whole big family.
Miguel was at the head of that. He brought people over and he wanted to do more.
He was so resilient. It was genuine. It came from his soul. It's what drove him. It's what drove him every day.
Brent Getchell, a construction manager at Habitat who worked with Estrella:
So many people cared about Miguel. We took him in. He was an employee of Habitat because we felt strongly that he was going somewhere. And that he was teachable, trainable, respectful. He treated everyone kind of even-keeled.
When the pandemic hit, him and I were the only ones on the job site for what seemed like forever. I worked side by side with him and spent eight hours a day with the guy, every day, and he became one of my best friends.
We had a shooting at a job site, in the intersection, about a year ago. A guy got out of the car, walked around the corner and shot four shots into a house, then went up the street and shot a couple more shots.
Within five minutes, we had eight or nine cruisers show up. Once they saw Miguel, it didn't matter who else was on the job site. One police officer approached Miguel and [asked] what was going on, what's happening. “Why are they shooting at you?” And Miguel's like, “I'm not in that. I work. You can see I'm working full time for Habitat. I don't have time for that stuff. I just want to make sure the people here are okay."
It turns out it had nothing to do with Miguel. It just happened in that neighborhood. Even though I considered the police officer to be harassing Miguel, Miguel maintained a very respectful demeanor. Very respectful, probably more so than I would have.
Last Friday night? I don't know what happened. I could speculate. I just know he was done wrong. And so was the community. Because we lost such a great, great person that was going places.
Elizabeth Walker, a community member who knew Estrella:
He was working so hard to bring his family up, stable and good. But right along with it, he was bringing this community up – and he had every intention to keep doing that. It wasn't ever just about him. I think everybody feels like family, because he made us feel that way. Like you were taken care of … and he would have our back.
PITTSFIELD — Attorney Wendy Taylor Linscott, a longtime community advocate, college classmate of Hillary Clinton and member of The Eagle’s advisory board, died on Tuesday at Berkshire Medical Center of complications from a rare form of cancer. She was 74.
The Egremont resident’s passing occurred 14 months after the death of her husband and law partner, James Lamme III, who also died of cancer at the age of 74 in February 2021.
The daughter of the late Roger Linscott, who won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1972 while working for The Berkshire Eagle, Wendy Linscott had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in October, according to her daughter, Taylor Lamme.
“To quote her oncologist, it was a rare and tricky cancer,” Linscott’s daughter said. “They didn’t know where it originated.”
Despite her diagnosis, Linscott continued to work at the Great Barrington law firm Lamme and Linscott that she operated jointly with her late husband. In 1974, James Lamme founded the firm that became Lamme and Linscott after his wife joined in 1980.
“She went to the office Monday morning,” said Taylor Lamme, who lives in San Francisco. “People were flabbergasted to know she was still going into the office.”
The Lammes, who had lived in Egremont since 1986, would have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on May 30, 2021. They made a great team, their daughter said.
“It always surprised people to hear that they were married and they worked together,” Lamme said. “I think there was something really special about the way they balanced each other out. They were both passionate about local causes.”
Linscott, who earned her law degree from the University of Connecticut Law School in 1979, loved the law and took great pleasure in serving the community.
“One of the things she loved about being a small-town lawyer was getting to know her clients,” Lamme said.
Linscott also served as a trustee of the Berkshire Natural Resources Council, The Egremont Land Trust and The Berkshire Botanical Garden, and was a member of Egremont’s Planning Board from 1988 to 1994. She played an instrumental role in helping to preserve Jug End Reservation in Egremont from developers in the mid-1980s, an event that led to the forming of The Egremont Land Trust.
A member of the Ethics Committee of Fairview Hospital, Linscott had previously served on the boards of Community Health Programs, Edith Wharton Reservation, Berkshire Choral Festival, Southern Berkshire Visiting Nurse Association and Lenox Club.
A 1969 honors graduate of Wellesley College, Linscott was also a former board member of the Berkshire Wellesley Club. She was classmates with Hillary Clinton at Wellesley, according to retired educator and nonprofit executive Phil Deely of Stockbridge, who first met Linscott when they were in high school.
“That group of young women had a meeting in the White House after Bill Clinton was elected,” Deely said, “and Wendy was a part of that.”
Born in New York City on June 4, 1947 to Roger Linscott and Lucy Ann Richardson Goodlatte Linscott, Wendy Linscott grew up in Richmond and graduated from Pittsfield High School. Deely, who attended Berkshire School in Sheffield, accompanied Linscott to social events when they were teenagers.
Deely said Linscott’s intelligence always stood out.
“The defining characteristic of her in many ways was her intellect,” he said. “She was really smart. In many ways she was a feminist a decade before that became trendy.
“What I mean by that is that she was an independent thinker, and she spoke her mind,” Deely said. “A lot of this I think she inherited from her father, who was the voice of The Berkshire Eagle when I was growing up.
“It was just always impressive.”
Georgeanne Rousseau of Lenox and her husband met Linscott and Lamme in 1990 after they moved to the Berkshires from London.
“She was excellent company,” Rousseau said. “She always had a great sense of humor, loved all kinds of music and the theater and spent a long, long, long time in a book group. She was always well read and had books around the house, both she and Jim. They read more than they watched TV.”
“Wendy was a wonderful woman,” Deely said. “Her death just reminds us of all that she brought to life in the Berkshires. She could have worked in a big time law firm anywhere in the U.S. and chose to live and practice in Berkshire County.
“I think we’re all very fortunate when we have people like that.”
Linscott is survived by her daughter, two sisters, Becky Linscott and Vicky Linscott of Sandisfield, and seven nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her husband and a sister, Judith Linscott.
A memorial service for Wendy Linscott will be scheduled later this year, her daughter said Thursday. Donations in Linscott’s name can be made to the John S. Watson Fund, Construct Inc., and the Elizabeth Freeman Center.
- By Alec MacGillis
There were two camps among the students who took European history with Charles “Chuck” Gilson at Pittsfield High School in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s: those who most celebrated his reenactment of El Cid’s corpse being propped on his steed in full armor to rally the troops during the siege of Valencia, and those who preferred his rendering of the death of Rasputin. I was in the latter camp. Of all Mr. Gilson’s instructive antics, nothing compared to his staging of the laborious assassination of the mysteriously influential Siberian holy man who in 1916 survived poisoning by potassium cyanide and several shots from a revolver before finally being drowned.
You might think late-Romanov Russian history would have been a tough sell for Pittsfield teenagers at the end of the Cold War, which was when I took the class, but only if you’d never experienced the pedagogic whirlwind that was Mr. Gilson, then a 50-ish man with oversize glasses, a legendary multihued combover, and wolfish smile, who for several decades staggered across the classroom as the indefatigable Mad Monk, among other roles.
As my classmates and I entered high school in the late 1980s, General Electric had just closed its huge electrical transformer division in Pittsfield, the new Berkshire Mall was accelerating the decline of North Street, and the city’s population decline, from a peak of 58,000 in 1960 to 44,000 today, was well underway. But somehow, thanks to the tax base, social capital and high expectations associated with the city’s more prosperous recent past, Pittsfield High retained an astonishing roster of educators, too many to name.
There was surely some luck involved, too. Mr. Gilson had been bound for a different calling: At St. Michael’s College in Vermont, he had been a member of the Edmundite Order, but left it for a master’s degree at Boston College before returning to his hometown of Pittsfield.
As someone who’d already endured countless hours in European churches and castles while visiting my mother’s German family, my openness to his tales was foreordained. But he was barely less captivating to the Pittsfield kids who came to his subject cold. As autumn gave way to the Berkshire winter and then a muddy spring, he carried us through the sweep of several dozen centuries, from ancient Sumeria to the Bay of Pigs.
Such surveys are daunting endeavors and prone to superficiality. But somehow, his style of instruction, combining intellectual passion with riveting performance, enlivened so many important historical figures and episodes that three decades later, their names still hold the charge he first gave them: Savonarola, Zwingli, Bloody Mary; the Defenestration of Prague, the Committee of Public Safety, the Emancipation of the Serfs; the Dreyfus Affair and Zimmerman Telegram, the Beer Hall Putsch and Night of the Long Knives, Yalta and Potsdam. There was art, too: Raphael, Brueghel, Delacroix, Goya …
Nor did he allow “European” to bound us unnecessarily. His unit on colonialism brought us to Cecil Rhodes and Lord Kitchener, to Gandhi and Nehru; World War II took us to Manchuria and Hiroshima, to Mao Tse-tung and Chiang Kai-shek. And this world was delivered with scarcely a glance at a textbook, but rather by Mr. Gilson himself, armed with nothing more than a piece of chalk and the large map hanging at the front of the room. He would gambol about as he told the stories he loved best and then peppered us with questions, as if to check not only the knowledge but the passion he was trying to share. Every so often, he would be struck by the delight of some new name or term or moment and he would move to the chalkboard with exaggerated steps, like a cartoon burglar, to add it to his cursive smorgasbord of the things he was certain we needed to know.
Each year, so many sophomores enjoyed his European history class that some 25 signed up for a repeat performance. In his Advanced Placement European history class, Mr. Gilson’s emphasis shifted to the big themes the AP board would test us on: Enlightenment, revolution, industrialism, nationalism, balance of powers, imperialism, totalitarianism. But to us kids, the class was essentially a chance to hear Mr. Gilson’s greatest hits all over again, and to live a little longer in the world he rendered so colorful and coherent.
My own adulation was unabashed. At the Latin Club’s annual toga banquet (a big deal in a school with a big Latin Club, the legacy of the legendary Janet Rajotte), I staged a group skit of a parody of a Gilson class, with myself in the title role. In college, I loaded up on more European history classes (though today it’s clear that Mr. Gilson’s taught me most of what I remember best). After graduation, I came close to taking a high school history teaching job, before landing at a small newspaper instead. Another student who first fell in love with European history in Mr. Gilson’s classroom returned to teach at Pittsfield High; today, she works for the State Department.
My reporting in the years that followed was exclusively domestic — somehow, my dream of working as a correspondent abroad, where my arsenal of Mr. Gilson’s facts might have been most useful, never came to be. But last fall, I had the chance to do a four-month fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin, and so 30 years after I last sat in the middle row of Mr. Gilson’s classroom, I was suddenly re-immersed in the history he’d introduced to me, as I brought my sons to see the Wannsee Conference villa and the Stasi prison and the gargantuan Soviet War Memorial in Berlin, or visited the even more gargantuan memorial to the allied victory over Napoleon, in Leipzig.
Later, when Russia invaded Ukraine, I found myself returning again to Pittsfield High and 1990 and Chuck Gilson’s retelling of the Kievan Rus, and Peter the Great, and the Great Famine, and I was thankful, amidst this new and horrific European story, for the educational foundation that might help me make sense of it and explain it to my sons.
While I had seen Mr. Gilson several times over the years, and each time made plain to him how much he had meant to us, I did not get to share this latest appreciation before receiving word of his death at age 88, last month. So I will say it now. To Mr. Gilson, the extraordinary teacher, the mad monk: thank you.
- The Berkshire Eagle
LEE — A day of music at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington will celebrate the life of a Lee man, whose talents and friendship captured the hearts of the Berkshire County music community.
The Hearts to Harte Benefit celebrates the life and impact of Jimmy “Hartso” Harte, a drummer, sound engineer and successful business owner whose passing Monday has inspired tributes from across a tight-knit music community.
Harte was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September and friends of the musician had been trying to find a way to host a benefit concert to help cover the cost of Harte’s chemotherapy treatment for months, according to a GoFundMe page set up for Harte.
Plans for the benefit were put on pause last fall over coronavirus concerns.
The GoFundMe drive raised more than $28,000 for Harte’s treatment and family. Updates to the page document how Harte continued to make music even as he fought the aggressive cancer.
Harte played a Halloween show, a month after his diagnosis, with his 1960s tribute ensemble, The Happy Together Band.
Supporters were still hoping to do something musical for the man they described as “always willing to help anyone in need” and “one of the best drummers in Berkshire County.”
Late last month a Facebook event for the benefit was created. A date, venue and lineup were settled on. Artists and friends Brian Benlien, John Zarvis and Pug Demary, Steve Adams, Jack Waldheim, Lady Di and The Dukes agreed to play the event and Harte’s own band, The Happy Together Band, was scheduled to play a set.
Then news broke Monday that Harte had died.
In the wake of his passing, friends flooded to Harte’s social media profile to memorialize a man they knew as “fun-loving,” “brilliant” and “every man’s friend.”
“Jimmy Harte is a human being everyone should know,” one person wrote on Harte’s GoFundMe page.
An update to the benefit’s event page on Monday promised that Saturday’s benefit would go on as planned, serving now as a celebration of Harte’s life and the place he has in a community’s hearts.
“This will be a chance to uphold each other as we mourn the loss of a great friend,” Jacqueline Clapper, who’s helping organize the event, wrote. “We will celebrate his life with stories, music, laughter and tears. Sharing the place in our hearts where Jimmy resides forever.”
Editor’s Note: This story was updated on May 3, 2022.
It was over 21 years ago that Daniel R. Duke was found unconscious on a road in Columbia, S.C.
Duke, a Lenox native, outdoorsman and marine biology student at the University of South Carolina, had suffered a head injury, leaving him with brain damage, local media reported.
Duke died Thursday as a result of the injury he suffered in December 2000, according to his obituary. He was 43 and a resident of Mount Carmel Care Center in Lenox.
What caused his injury remains a mystery.
He had been struck in the head by an object as he tried to cross Pickens Street some time after 3 a.m., according to a report from WLTX, a local CBS television affiliate. His body was found by a passerby.
The station reported that Duke, a graduate of Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington, was leaving a friend’s dorm room en route to his own when the incident occurred. Duke slipped into a coma, and remained in one for at least the next six years.
About a month after the incident, The State newspaper cited a medical expert speculating that Duke may have been struck by the side-view mirror of a passing vehicle. Former Columbia Police Chief Charles Austin told the paper he believed it was possible that a motorist may not have realized he struck Duke.
But there was “no broken glass, no skid marks and no car parts at the scene,” WLTX reported.
Duke’s father expressed doubt about the vehicle theory over a decade ago, saying he would have expected to see “other indications” of a crash involving a pedestrian.
The station quoted Columbia Police Corp. Derek Miller calling the investigation one of the most “puzzling” cases of his career.
“I believe whoever did it knows somebody was hit that night. Whether it be a car or an individual who just happened to pick on our son ... because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Duke’s mother Jessie told WLTX in 2007.
Duke’s family could not immediately be reached by The Eagle for comment. His burial is private.
Duke attended Berkshire Community College before transferring to South Carolina.
Donations may be made in Duke’s memory to the Dan Duke Memorial Scholarship Fund in care of Roche Funeral Home, 120 Main St., Lenox.
Editor’s Note: This story contains strong language and discussion of violence.
CHESHIRE — The day before her youngest child was stabbed to death, Linda Tatro saw what it looked like when her daughter’s husband became enraged.
Luis Rosado leaned forward from a chair on her home’s front porch in Cheshire, and screamed. “If you ever f---ing leave me, I will f---ing kill you,” she said she heard him say to her daughter.
It wasn’t the first time Linda Tatro saw Rosado angry. It would be the last.
The next day, Saturday, May 28, prosecutors say Rosado stabbed and killed Jillian Tatro, 38, at her apartment on Charles Street in North Adams.
In interviews and statements this week, family and friends provided the first full public accounting of Jillian Tatro’s last days and of her brief marriage to a man who she at first believed offered her security. But they allege that Rosado’s violence and drug use quickly shattered that sense of safety. In her last months, Tatro knew she needed to find an escape, friends and family say.
She tried to protect herself, including through the use of a court’s order that lapsed over a month before she died. Her death has left family and friends wondering how this tragedy might have been avoided — and what might have been done through the legal system and the community to save her.
During a two-hour interview this week, Linda Tatro explained that on the Friday before her daughter’s murder, the couple had gotten into a verbal fight. Jillian discovered Rosado, who is 49, was using drugs again. Jillian Tatro told Rosado to get out of the home. When he didn’t, she called the police.
In the presence of officers, Rosario’s belongings were collected and packed into a cab, which he left in, bound for Pittsfield.
In the family’s kitchen at the Cheshire home, sympathy cards sit propped on a table near the door. In the living room, a bouquet of red roses and white carnations sits on a coffee table.
Linda Tatro struggles to understand how it is that the man who used to call her “mama,” and who professed his love for Jillian and her family, stands accused of killing her daughter. Rosado pleaded not guilty June 3 to a single count of murder in Tatro’s death. He was ordered held without bail before trial.
That’s the same man, Linda Tatro says, who used to cook meals in her kitchen and wore a gold rosary around his neck.
Jennifer Tatro thinks her little sister gravitated to Rosado because she felt, in some sense, that Rosado could protect her. In Jillian, she thinks Rosado found someone he thought he could control. “He was very manipulative,” Jennifer Tatro said.
Early signs of violence
Jillian Tatro and Rosado met last fall. Linda Tatro now believes Rosado began to abuse her daughter within a month or two. At a vigil this week, friends said they had seen bruising on her face. In March, Jillian Tatro sought and obtained a protective order against Rosado from Northern Berkshire District Court.
Defense attorney Jeffrey Brown, who is representing Rosado in the murder case the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office brought against him in connection with Tatro’s death, declined to comment for this article.
Jillian Tatro had worked hard to achieve independence, her family members say. As a child, she worked with her mother at a local bingo hall, running food that her mother cooked out to patrons. It was also where she met Kristen McLain, who would become one of her lifelong friends.
There had been discord in her childhood home. Linda Tatro said the man who would become her first husband had threatened to harm her family if they didn’t marry. She thinks Rosado issued a similar threat toward her daughter.
“She was afraid of him. She was intimidated,” Linda Tatro said.
When the couple married without fanfare in January, Jennifer Tatro wonders why her sister, 10 years younger, had decided to enmesh herself with Rosado after working hard to achieve her independence — and turning down proposals in the past. No one from the family was invited to the ceremony, Linda Tatro said, or knew about the wedding until it was over.
Jillian Tatro had prized independence. She become legally emancipated at age 16, her family members say, and became pregnant with her first child. She moved into her own place at Dower Square Apartments in Pittsfield.
McLain had a son around that same time and the two young mothers raised their children in tandem. She said Jillian’s daughter gave her friend new meaning and purpose in life: She “absolutely loved it.”
Jillian Tatro worked as a personal care assistant, the seeds of which family said were sown as early as age 9, when she would help massage her grandfather’s asbestos-damaged lungs, after his shifts at the General Electric Co. in Pittsfield.
She grew into a fashionista and liked stylish clothes and perfumes. She was a social chameleon, Linda Tatro said, and could fit in with nearly anyone. Jillian Tatro loved dogs and horses, and went on to have a second child, a son.
A volatile relationship
The relationship Jillian Tatro formed with her new husband was often volatile, fluctuating from the good — newlyweds cooking dinner in the Cheshire kitchen — to the dangerous, her family says.
When a conflict would erupt between the two at Linda Tatro’s home, Jillian often told her mother to go into her room, her mother said. Jillian Tatro served as Linda’s caregiver, and did everything for her, as Linda uses a walker and has limited mobility. Jillian Tatro split her time between her mother’s house and her own apartment in North Adams.
Jillian was also protective. When asked about signs of abuse in her relationship with Rosado, she would at times respond along the lines of, “I got this,” McLain said.
“She felt like she had to go along with his requests,” said Jennifer Tatro. “In her mind, she was protecting other people, her family.”
McLain said that even when her best friend was physically away from Rosado, he kept close tabs on her. He would call and check up on her repeatedly, behavior McLain described as stalking.
“There’s no other way to put it, he was stalking her,” said Linda Tatro. “Constant intimidation keeps them under their control.”
On March 11, Rosado called state police to Linda Tatro’s Cheshire home and accused Jillian Tatro of hitting him. He admitted to a trooper that he was on probation for domestic violence, and also confirmed that a cut on his face had been sustained from shaving.
The trooper arrested Jillian Tatro nonetheless, according to the trooper’s report, after kicking in the front door of the home. The arrest resulted in a court case against Jillian — the second that police agreed to file against her based on a complaint from her husband. Rosado had a documented history of domestic abuse, and was previously incarcerated in New York for assault.
The Berkshire DA’s office said in 2020 that Rosado pleaded guilty to strangulation and other charges related to the domestic assault of another victim, whom he intimidated in recorded phone calls from jail not to testify against him. He was sentenced to one year in jail.
On March 14, three days after state police arrested her at her mother’s Cheshire home, Jillian Tatro obtained an abuse prevention order in an effort to keep Rosado away from her.
In a sworn affidavit, she said Rosado “lies, terrorizes me and hurts me physically then has me falsely arrested due to him injuring himself.”
She told the court at the time she was petrified and that her marriage was dangerous for her. Rosado was “amazing sober,” she wrote, but had started using drugs heavily just weeks after they married in early January.
At this point, she said he was “very unstable and unpredictable.” She said he had punched her and choked her. Berkshire District Attorney Andrea Harrington said recently that choking is a warning sign of a future domestic violence homicide.
“I am in fear for my life at this point, I don’t know who to turn to anymore,” Tatro wrote in an affidavit. “I have a family to protect, as well as myself.”
The court granted a temporary abuse prevention order, but it expired after Tatro didn’t show up to a subsequent hearing. Her sister Jennifer and mother believe Rosado took Jillian out of town so the couple would miss the hearing. They went on vacation.
Linda Tatro said protections must be strengthened for victims who, for whatever reason, fail to appear for the follow-up hearing after disclosing abuse at the hands of another.
“The law needs to change if they don’t show up ... you go check on that person,” she said. “People have to do something; you can’t just sit back and do nothing.”
A deadly weekend
On Friday, May 27, Jillian had found Rosado was using drugs, once again, family said.
During the argument they had on the final Friday of her life, Jillian Tatro stood on the road outside the home her grandparents built on a rural plot around 1948. A row of trees was to her right, near the old enclosure for her horses, Monty, Ruby and Bella.
For weeks, Tatro had been readying to leave Rosado.
Her mother thinks Jillian must have said something to Rosado about how their relationship was soon to end, because she said Rosado leaned forward in his chair on the front porch, and screamed that threat on her life.
Janis Broderick, executive director of the Elizabeth Freeman Center, said the risk of lethality increases 75 percent when a victim prepares to leave their abuser.
“Domestic violence is not about love. It’s about power and control over someone. So when an abuser fears losing that control, they’re more likely to act impulsively and violently,” she said. “There’s a reason that the phrase, ‘If I can’t have you, no one will,’ is so common.”
Broderick said those looking to leave an abusive relationship should contact the Elizabeth Freeman Center, whose experts can help victims discretely develop a plan to escape an abusive situation, arrange for new lodging and supports, and address other considerations, like what to do when children and pets are involved.
After Rosado threatened her daughter’s life, Linda Tatro told him never to speak to Jillian like that again. Rosado left in a cab with his belongings.
Jillian Tatro had an escape plan, her mother and sister say. She was going to go camping with McLain. She went to her apartment in North Adams to pack.
“She was going to escape, to get some air. Get away from him. So he couldn’t find her,” Jennifer Tatro said.
But before she got the chance to leave town with McLain, Rosado was back. He arrived in a cab at her apartment on Charles Street in North Adams about 2 a.m. the next morning, unwanted and uninvited, according to Jennifer Tatro.
He started making a scene outside her apartment, screaming her name and swearing, according to what Jillian Tatro told her mother on a phone call the next day.
Jennifer Tatro said her sister, at that point, did not have faith in the authorities. Not after she believed state police took his word over hers in past domestic incidents.
She let Rosado inside, perhaps believing she could diffuse the situation on her own, family said. Or perhaps believing that doing so was the only option — and not wanting neighbors to be disturbed in the middle of the night.
“Does she have faith in the police?” Jennifer Tatro asked. “Obviously not. Look what they’ve done to her before.”
“She just thought that if she told him what he wanted to hear, if she would let him in, that he would just be calm,” she said.
Next came the phone call from Jillian Tatro to her mother, around 2 p.m. Saturday. Jillian was whispering, and her mother thinks Rosado may still have been in her apartment. They tried to call back, and there was no response.
Jennifer Tatro said Rosado knew what type of behavior he needed to display to persuade Jillian to let him in.
Prosecutors say Rosado stabbed Jillian multiple times in her Charles Street apartment that Saturday, killing her. She was found near the door to her apartment. Her family believes she had been trying to leave.
He was arrested in Pittsfield five days later.
Late in life, Jillian Tatro had grown more interested in being outdoors — reading maps and identifying birds. She was coming into her own, her sister said this week.
“She didn’t know who she was growing up. She was finding herself,” Jennifer Tatro said.
“She was a little Martha Stewart,” said Linda Tatro. “She loved to learn.”
If you’re experiencing domestic violence, call the Elizabeth Freeman Center’s 24/7 toll-free hotline at (866) 401-2425.
WILLIAMSTOWN — Had he become an actor instead of an academic, John W. Chandler would have been well-suited for a wide variety of roles.
His mild-mannered ways, his gentle sense of humor, his self-deprecating candor and his ability to put others at ease invited this movie buff’s comparison of him to certain memorable characters portrayed by James Stewart, Spencer Tracy and Gary Cooper.
Tempting as they are, the comparisons gradually fade because John Wesley Chandler didn’t seek the spotlight or assume other characters. He was, as my late mother would say, “the genuine article — a real gent.”
On Aug. 5, Professor Chandler, the 12th president of Williams College, died in Lenox, a few weeks shy of his 99th birthday.
He leaves his wife, Joyce Lazarus, four children, five grandchildren and a great-grandchild. His first wife, the former Florence Gordon, predeceased him, as did two brothers.
“Dad never lost his capacity to marvel at the life he was graced with ... and he saw it as grace, reflecting often that the balance of his life was blessed with grace much more than challenged by hardship,” his daughter, Jennifer Chandler of Haydenville, wrote last week.
The son of sharecroppers who raised burley tobacco, he was born in Mars Hill, N.C., in 1923. His father was 52, his mother 25. The tobacco market collapsed in the Great Depression and his father died from pneumonia. His mother cared for John and his brothers until her mental illness forced her to find homes for herself and the boys with a series of relatives. The Depression wore on, however, and the family reluctantly placed the boys in a local Baptist orphanage, Mills Home.
“We who lived at Mills Home were surrounded by cultural and educational influences and opportunities that were far superior to what we had known earlier or had any prospect of experiencing,” Professor Chandler wrote in his memoir. “It was not surprising that the college-going rate among us was higher than that of the general population of the time.”
After graduating from Wake Forest College, he earned a Ph.D. in the philosophy of religion from Duke University, then taught philosophy at Wake Forest before joining the Williams faculty in 1955. As a professor and department chair, he established the college’s religion major and served as acting provost and dean of the faculty under President John E. Sawyer. He left Williams in 1968 to become president of Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., where he remained for five years.
He was named president of Williams in 1973 and served for 12 years before accepting an appointment as president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities. A Fulbright scholar, he was the author of two books and the recipient of 16 honorary degrees.
Busy as he was, Professor Chandler “was a terrific and an incredible parent,” Jennifer Chandler recalls. “He never allowed the fatigue or challenges of the times to cause him to snap at us,” she wrote. “I cannot remember a time when we looked at one another to ask, ‘What’s up with Dad?’’’
John W. Chandler Jr., of Longmeadow, recalled his father’s occasional personification of the absent-minded professor. His “signature phrase,” employed when he realized he’d made a mistake, was “Oh my!”
“Dad made three trips down to the House of Walsh on Spring Street to select, get tailored, and bring home a new suit,” his son remembers. “When he went to hang it in his closet at the president’s house, I heard him say it. I found him staring at his new suit hanging next to an identical suit that he had previously purchased. ‘Oh my!’”
Traveling to an academic conference in Virginia, Professor Chandler was “frustrated to discover that the airline, rental car company and hotel each failed to show his reservation in their systems, forcing him to purchase everything at the counter,” his son recalled. “It wasn’t until he got to the empty conference center that he realized he’d left a day early for his trip. ‘Oh my!’”
My late father, who succeeded Professor Chandler as dean of the faculty at Williams, enjoyed relating his friend’s observation upon learning that my dad had arranged for burial plots in the college cemetery, which is situated on high ground near the tennis courts.
“I can’t imagine spending eternity watching bad tennis,” he said.
Oh my.
- By James Harris
GREAT BARRINGTON — Can you imagine life in the Berkshires without the ever effervescent Hilda Banks Shapiro? Me neither.
But she left us on Aug. 17 and bicycled off in her red Converse high-tops to join Schubert and Brahms instead. She’ll also be on the special lookout for FDR, Mother Teresa and Clark Gable.
An irrepressibly positive personality who beamed goodwill to all, even Republicans, Hilda had her fingers in many pies when they weren’t on the keyboard, from the Egremont Garden Club to the Mason Library, the Sheffield Kiwanis to the Great Barrington Tree Committee — she loved trees above all things, even dogs. She established scholarships at Monument Mountain Regional High School in memory of her sons Mitchell and Samuel (nine of her children graduated from Monument), and another at Berkshire School in memory of Terry Pines, with whom Hilda co-founded Barrington Performing Arts Inc.
At the piano keyboard, Hilda was everywhere: At Berkshire Music School, where she taught from 1970 to 2004 and was a founding member of the Linden Trio; helping organize the Octoberzest music and March Hare dance festivals at Simon’s Rock College, where she accompanied student singers in their recitals; and playing the piano at countless musicals at Monument Mountain and Mount Everett high schools and at Berkshire School.
Born in Boston on Dec. 19, 1926, and raised in nearby Dorchester and Brookline, Hilda attended local schools until fourth grade and then was tutored while she studied piano, first with Leonard Shure, a former child prodigy, and then the famed — and intimidating — Arthur Schnabel, whose other students included Leon Fleisher, who was two years Hilda’s junior.
In 1942, at age 15, Hilda was awarded a fellowship at the Berkshire Music Center, now Tanglewood. That summer, she twice played Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, accompanied by the Berkshire Music Center Orchestra under the batons of Frederick Fennell and the young Lucas Foss.
The next year, Hilda made her professional solo debut at Jordan Hall in her native Boston and, in 1946, one month shy of her 20th birthday, she made her solo debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City — a concert she reenacted 50 years later at the Berkshire Music School. Then it was off to Europe, where, with Schuman, Brahms and Chopin on the menu, Hilda played to great acclaim in London, Paris, Amsterdam and The Hague.
A promising career beckoned. But our Hilda had other plans.
‘Cheaper by the Dozen’
At 13, she had read the novel “Cheaper by the Dozen” and announced to her parents that she would someday have 12 children. Enter Leonard Shapiro, a jeweler and refugee from the Free City of Danzig who also loved music. (Shapiro was a gold and platinum caster whose work would later be commissioned by the Vatican.) The couple married in 1948 and eventually moved to Litchfield, Conn., with Leonard working in New York City during the week.
In time, Hilda had her dozen — Andre, Mark, Mitchell, Serena, Jonathan, Jason, Kari, Claudia, Samuel, David, Miriam and Stephanie — all born at Danbury Hospital in a span of 19 years via the same general practitioner.
In 1972, the family bought Broadmeadow, a 130-acre dairy farm in Great Barrington, along with 50 Holsteins for milk and a Jersey named Bathsheba for butter. Sounded like fun to Hilda, and for the next three years the woman who had been the toast of Europe was up at dawn squeezing udders on behalf of the HP Hood company.
Exit Leonard Shapiro, all of a sudden. Hilda — left with 10 children, little money and no car — made do, starting with babysitting at $1 an hour per child. She then formed a quartet, A Taste of Honey (with kids David, Miriam and Stephanie), that played at weddings and other occasions. Soon, Hilda was playing the piano all over the Berkshires, and hitchhiking, often with children in tow, to get to her gigs.
Thanks to Harold
And to think none of it may never have happened without Harold.
Who is Harold, you ask? Jan Hutchinson of South Egremont tells the story in the liner notes for the only CD Hilda ever made — at age 89:
“Hilda’s lifelong love of music began underneath her family’s piano, where she lay listening to her brother trying to master ‘The Waltz of the Flowers.’ One day from the kitchen, her mother finally heard a lovely rendition of the waltz and yelled out, ‘Now you’ve got it, Harold!’
“‘But mother!’ he yelled back. ‘It’s not me playing, it’s Hilda!’ Hilda was 4 years old.”
In the last year of her life, Hilda broke a hip and then, in her fashion, conquered the effects of two strokes until her huge heart finally gave it all up one morning in August. Little surprise that hours later, after days and days of drought, it rained on her garden on Broadmeadow Farm, not far from Mitchell’s white pickup.
Farewell, lovey (or, if you prefer, poopsie), with love and gratitude from all of us.
- The Berkshire Eagle
FLORIDA — The motorcyclist who died after losing control of his bike Saturday night on River Road in Florida has been identified as Kyle Richard Pellerin, 44, of Drury, according to an obituary released by Flynn & Dagnoli Funeral Home.
Massachusetts State Police say that at around 8:11 p.m., troopers from the Cheshire Barracks responded to the crash. A preliminary investigation showed that Pellerin was driving a 2007 Harley Davidson motorcycle on River Road.
"For reasons still under investigation the operator lost control and crashed the motorcycle," state police said in a news release. "No other vehicle was involved."
Pellerin was transported to the Berkshire Medical Center facility in North Adams where he was declared dead.
The crash remains under investigation. The Florida Fire Department and Northern Berkshire EMS assisted with the crash scene.
According to the obituary, Pellerin was born in North Adams on Sept. 6, 1978, to Richard William Pellerin and the late Judith Ann (Nichols) Pellerin.
He was a graduate of McCann High School's electricity program and was employed by the city of Pittsfield as an electrician for many years.
A Christian Burial for Pellerin will start at 11 a.m. Friday at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church. Burial will follow in Southview Cemetery. Calling hours are Thursday from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Flynn & Dagnoli West Chapel at 521 West Main St. in North Adams.
NORTH ADAMS — Several balloons were tied to the side of Doris Cote’s Church Street home. “Hugs & prayers,” one read. The message “I love you” adorned two others.
Neighbors remember Cote as a sweet and friendly person. The news of her death shocked the quiet neighborhood.
A police car outside of the home recently was an odd sight, neighbor John Lord said. He grew up in the neighborhood and now lives down the street, and he had never seen a police car outside her house before.
Doris took frequent walks in her neighborhood and would always stop to say hello, said Lord and his girlfriend Dorothea Haskins. She had a “cheery way about her,” Haskins said. Everyone in the neighborhood knew her, Lord said.
“It was a pleasure knowing someone as sweet as Doris,” Haskins said. “Our hearts go out to the family. … It’s a horrible tragedy.”
Cote’s granddaughter, Kelsie Cote, 26, pleaded not guilty on Monday to multiple charges in connection with Cote’s death.
Neighbors were surprised to learn of Kelsie Cote’s arrest in the case.
“It almost seems there’s no way she’s done that,” said Brianna Lord, John Lord’s daughter who went to school with Kelsie Cote and described her as “tiny, sweet, harmless.”
“It doesn’t match up to the person we know,” Haskins said.
Graziana Ramsden has been Doris Cote’s neighbor for about 20 years.
“I was very much taken aback by the news of her death,” Ramsden said on Monday.
Like Haskins and the Lords, she also remembers seeing Doris Cote taking walks in the neighborhood, often with her husband, Ray, before he died early this year.
“She was always very kind, very jovial. Always in a good mood, both of them,” Ramsden said. “We will remember her as someone who was truly a wonderful neighbor.”
Ramsden, originally from Italy and a language professor at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, learned about the community through Cote.
“She would tell me some North Adams local history from a personal point of view of her own. That’s fun,” Ramsden said. “I think that it’s always interesting to hear local stories by people who have lived them — it gives you a completely different perspective as an outsider.”
The last time I talked to Jake Hescock was in the weeks after his college football career at the University of Central Florida came to a successful close when the Knights beat the University of Florida in the 2021 Gasparilla Bowl.
He had so much to look forward to.
“I’ve lived in Madison, Wisc. I’ve lived in Orlando, Fla. I’ve been in Salisbury, Conn., Pittsfield, Mass. I’ve met hundreds and hundreds of extremely successful people, some of the people I call my best friends, people that are going to be at my wedding,” Hescock said. “I’ve already gone to weddings with some of my best friends for life.
“All these experiences have prepared me for the real world and for what’s next.”
It is sad that Jake Hescock never got to use those experiences in the real world. Hescock, 25, died Sunday. He had been out for a jog in Boston, where he had moved to take a job in medical equipment sales, when he was stricken.
The last time we spoke for an interview, he was at a high school basketball game at Wahconah High School. I jokingly said “Step into my office” for a chat.
When we spoke that night, he said he was ready to close the book on football and begin the next chapter.
“It’s been a 17-year journey. It’s still hitting me every day,” Hescock said. “It gets a little more real, but I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity I’ve had and the journey I took.
“I couldn’t be happier with the way things ended.”
Hescock wrapped up his college career on Dec. 23, 2021, when his UCF football team beat the University of Florida 29-17 in the Union Home Mortgage Gasperilla Bowl, played in Tampa. The Knights ended the season with a 9-4 record and a signature win over the traditional state power and SEC member, Gators.
In four seasons at Central Florida, Hescock played on teams that went 37-12, won the American Athletic Conference championship in 2018, and went 2-2 in bowl games. Coincidentally, both wins were at the Gasparilla Bowl. The first one came in 2019, when the Knights beat Marshall in what was then the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl game.
Beating Florida wasn’t like winning a national title or playing in the BCS Tournament. Believe me when I say this, it was as good a way for Jake Hescock’s college football career to end as any.
“It was the state championship of Florida,” he told me in Dalton. “We got to come out victorious and beat the SEC Gators. I was happy for our fans. They got the bragging rights until 2023.”
The first time Jake and I spoke for a story was in February, 2016, when I traveled to Salisbury School in Connecticut for Salisbury’s signing day ceremony. That day, Hescock inked a National Letter of Intent with the University of Wisconsin.
“It’s a special day. It’s a lot of hard work that has finally paid off. It’s a lot of sweat and tears and grinding out on a football field,” Hescock said that day. “Now I finally get to see some payment for it. It’s also a special day for my family.”
Four months later, I ran into Hescock at Wahconah Park, just before he was pulling out of Pittsfield for Madison, the first stop on his college journey.
“I’m extremely excited,” Hescock told me just before he left for the Midwest. “I’ve been waiting for this for a year now.
“I’ve gotten the chance to be a celebrity in town,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve had a chance to do all that. It’s a humbling moment. I’m going to go and finally compete and see what it’s all like.”
Over the course of his college career, Hescock had a lot to deal with. Transferring from a Big Ten school to an American Athletic Conference school, and then going through a bunch of coaching staffs. But when we talked, even once on zoom call with reporters in Orlando, he seemed to take things in stride.
It was Paul Chryst at Wisconsin and then three coaches at UCF.
Transferring to Central Florida, his first season was under Scott Frost, who then left for Nebraska. Heupel, a former University of Oklahoma quarterback, then took over before joining former Central Florida athletic director Danny White at Tennessee. Finally, when Heupel left for Tennessee, Gus Malzahn came to UCF.
“I think it really started even when Heupel left,” said Hescock, who was asked about the buy-in for Malzahn and the new staff. “Instead of everybody going their own way, everybody bought into each other. That was one of the biggest things. We didn’t even have a head coach. That was one of the biggest periods for us because we got a chance to bond and buy into each other. No matter what coach came into the building, we were going to be ready to work once spring started.”
His death leaves a void for his family, his friends, his former coaches and teammates.
May his memory truly be a blessing.
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HANCOCK — About 10 years ago, Kimberlee Francoeur started working as a snowmaker at Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort.
With a love of the outdoors and a background in auto mechanics, working on snow guns and preparing the mountain for skiers and snowboarders was a good job for Francoeur. She was one of the first women to work in snow-making at the resort, according to Tyler Fairbank, president of the Fairbank Group, which owns and operates the ski resort.
“Snow was her one love,” said Emily Tarjick, Francoeur’s niece. “She loved snow and snow making.”
But on Tuesday, Francoeur, 30, died as a result of injuries suffered at Jiminy Peak when the snowmobile she was operating collided with a snow groomer, according to a news release from the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office.
“According to witness statements, Francoeur was working as a snowmaker and the snowmobile she was operating was stopped on the mountain when the snow groomer operator backed into the vehicle. Francoeur succumbed to the injuries she suffered in the collision,” the release stated.
The DA’s office called the incident, which occurred shortly before 11 a.m., “an apparent accidental death.” Jiminy Peak Ski Patrol and Northern Berkshire EMS personnel attempted life-saving measures, but Francoeur was pronounced dead around 11:20 a.m.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner took custody of her body to determine the cause and manner of her death. Massachusetts State Police Cheshire barracks, Massachusetts State Police Crime Scene Services Section and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration all responded to the scene. The Berkshire State Police Detective Unit’s investigation is ongoing.
Francoeur, whose family said she went by Kimber, is remembered as someone who loved the outdoors and snow-making. The lifelong Berkshires resident grew up in Cheshire, graduated from McCann Technical School and most recently lived in Adams, according to her family.
“She was a funny young woman who will be dearly missed,” said Dave Tarjick, her brother-in-law.
In high school, she played football. “She was a strong girl,” he said. She “didn’t really take any s---,” he said.
After high school, she went to Lincoln Tech in Connecticut, according to family members. She later started working at Jiminy Peak.
“She fell in love with it there,” Dave Tarjick said.
In 2019, Francoeur reflected on her job in an interview with The Eagle. “I like being outside all the time,” she said. “It’s quiet and peaceful, especially in the middle of the night. And the job is physically demanding, but not too bad. It’s a lot of walking, eight to 12 miles every day.”
It was satisfying for her to see skiers on the more than 10 miles of terrain she and her team created, she said in 2019. “It feels really good.”
“Kimber was cherished by our entire family and team,” Fairbank said in an email to The Eagle. “What a terrible terrible accident. We are all heartbroken to say the least.”
Austin Larabee worked with Francoeur at Jiminy Peak for about six years until he left several years ago.
“I don’t really know how to comprehend it,” he said of her death. “She wasn’t sick, she wasn’t ill, she wasn’t in pain. It was just a tragedy.”
He remembered her passion for snow-making.
“She loved everything about it. The mountains were her home. If she felt lost she would say, ‘Put me back in the mountains.’” She was more often outside than at home, he said. “I can’t even count the amount of mountain tops she got to.”
Larabee described her as outgoing, kind and adventurous, and said she went skydiving for her 30th birthday. She also loved skiing, snowboarding, and hiking with her two dogs, Aspen and Oakley, Emily Tarjick said.
“She’d go all over the place hiking with the dogs and friends of hers,” Dave Tarjick added.
Emily Tarjick remembered her as someone who motivated other people, other women especially. “She was always that person who made it easy for you to do the thing you were afraid of.”
Kimber was also laid back and friendly, Dave Tarjick said.
“She had that kind of aura about her. People just loved her. She was honest and genuine,” he said. “That was her. If you were her friend, or her family, she would do anything for you.”
In a reflection on social media, one of Francoeur’s sisters, Loretta Lynn Forfa, said it was important to focus not on how Francoeur died, but how she lived. She posted a list of what her sister lived for:
“Never backing down,” part of the list reads. “Pushing a car uphill in winter in flip flops. To be strong for everyone. To get lost in the woods. To find her way there. To make Christmas cookies with her nieces and nephews. To read Stephen King … for so much more.”
PITTSFIELD — She held leadership roles in the Berkshire Jewish community when women didn’t normally serve in those positions. And, in later years, she acted as a trusted adviser to those who came after her.
Rhoda Kaminstein, of Pittsfield, who served as both president and executive director of the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires in the 1980s and also held several other prominent positions in her faith community, died peacefully in Pittsfield on Wednesday at 92.
Kaminstein, who had lived in the Berkshires since 1965, also served as president of Temple Anshe Amunim in Pittsfield twice, including a stint as the temple’s first female president from 1993-1997, and headed the Berkshire County chapter of Hadassah, an American Jewish Volunteer Women’s Organization.
“She was really the ideal kind of volunteer person who never said no,” said Judy Cook of Pittsfield, who served with Kaminstein on several committees. “When we needed a good resource, we could always count on Rhoda, because she had so much history.”
Dara Kaufman, the current executive director of the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires, which is based in Pittsfield, said Kaminstein was always available to help anyone who needed assistance.
“Throughout the years she continued to reach out to me personally and continued to be a source of advice, and a mentor, and show an interest in and support the activities of the Jewish community through the federation and Anshe Amunim, which was her home temple,” said Kaufman, who has served as the federation’s executive director since 2013. “Right up to probably a year ago, I continued to have conversations with her on the phone.
“She was smart. She was thoughtful,” Kaufman said. “I always felt that she was very observant. She picked up on many nuances and had a really great way of sharing her thoughts with people. She had strong opinions, but she had a great way of sharing her thoughts with people so they could be heard. She always thought in a big picture kind of way in our conversations.”
Born on May 2, 1929 in Ithaca, N.Y., Kaminstein worked for IBM first in the Binghamton area, then in New York City, before coming to the Berkshires. Her late husband, Philip, who died in 2019, worked at Berkshire Farm in Canaan, N.Y., and the couple met after a mutual friend set them up while she was living in New York City. The Kaminsteins, who were married for 54 years, came to Pittsfield after they married in 1965. They enjoyed traveling and collecting paperweights from their many journeys, which included sojourns to Israel, London and several U.S. National Parks.
Rhoda Kaminstein became involved in local Jewish communal affairs shortly after arriving in the Berkshires. She had served as president of Pittsfield’s chapter of Hadassah, and Temple Anshe Amunim Sisterhood, as vice president of the Western New England Region of Hadassah and had chaired the women’s division of the Jewish Welfare Fund Campaign before being named interim executive director of the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires in 1981 after her predecessor left after only six months on the job, according to Eagle files. She later received the job on a permanent basis, and served in that position until 1989.
“I think she had a very strong sense of community,” said her son, Daniel, who grew up in Pittsfield, and now lives in Allentown, N.J. “She liked to give back not just in the temple community but in the community at large.”
After retiring, Kaminstein served as a volunteer at Arrowhead, Moby-Dick author Herman Melville’s historic home in Pittsfield, which also serves as the headquarters of the Berkshire County Historical Society. When Kaminstein wasn’t serving in the community, she enjoyed playing mahjong with friends.
“It kept her active,” Daniel said. “She wasn’t one to just sit around the house.”
“She was just an amazing woman,” said Alba Passarini of Lenox, who also served with Kaminstein on various committees. “She always spoke her mind and she would tell you that. If she didn’t like something she would be the first to tell you ... She always took a leadership role and people respected her because she always did her research. When she took a position it was always very fair because she would look at both sides. If you could convince her she was wrong she would switch.”
In the 1990s, Kaminstein also played a prominent role in helping the federation assist Jewish residents of the former Soviet Union to resettle in the Berkshires, according to friends.
“We did more than most of the big federations did,” said Ellen Masters of Pittsfield, who worked with Kaminstein on that project. “Nothing was daunting to her. She never shied away from anything.”
Kaminstein came from a long line of strong women. Her mother, Belle Silverstein, lived to 106. According to an article written for Temple Anshe Amunim, her grandmother once thwarted a burglar in Syracuse, N.Y., who tried to steal her ring during a series of purse snatchings in that city. Her grandmother was willing to give up her purse, but when she yelled loudly “don’t take my ring” the thief reportedly ran away.
Kaminstein is survived by her son, his wife Wendy, their children, Stephanie and Matthew, her sister-in-law Carole, two nephews, three grand-nieces and a grand-nephew.
- By Leonard Quart
Todd Gitlin, activist, scholar and, most importantly, a social critic and writer, died earlier this year at 79. I first encountered him when I was a grad student closely reading about his connection to the early 1960s Students for a Democratic Society of the humanistic Port Huron statement.
The statement, the first draft of which was authored by Tom Hayden, elaborated a program of political and social reform based at first on nonviolence and participatory democracy. It was an idealistic document calling for a new kind of liberation, social experimentation and a more egalitarian society. The document closed with the following: “If we appear to seek the unattainable, let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable.” It was a humane, eloquent proclamation, touched by utopianism of the least airless variety and influenced by Bob Moses’ early mark on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and by intellectuals like radical sociologist C. Wright Mills, “The Lonely Crowd” co-author David Riesman and the great French novelist and essayist Albert Camus.
A bit later, Gitlin was in 1963-64 president of an SDS whose ranks swelled with protesters against the war in Vietnam, until it collapsed into self-destructive factionalism and infantile terrorism. When he was president, Gitlin assisted in organizing the first national demonstration against the war and helped lead the first protests in the United States against apartheid in South Africa.
Gitlin later also wrote the most compelling, richly textured and lucidly written book about the rise and fall of the ‘60s and the New Left, “The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage,” that was part memoir, part history and a sometimes critical examination of those activist years. His understanding of those years was heightened by his role in participating and shaping them. He knew clearly what the era’s limits were. ”A certain tendency to know-nothing leveling” and an assumption from some that “all knowledge is bankrupt.” A recklessness of spirit which sometimes “risks the destruction of liberal institutions sooner than accept less than total victory.” In education, “there are self-righteous new orthodoxies which ... do tend to stifle thought.“ “Movements that seek to represent underrepresented people too often harden into self-seeking ... the balkanization of small differences.”
Gitlin had no illusions; he knew that the leftists of the time were “in no position to take power: If we did, the only honorable sequel would be abdication.” Remembering my experiences as someone allied with the New Left and counter culture as a college teacher, Gitlin was utterly on target: We had egalitarian dreams and seductive rhetoric, but little capacity to run anything. In fact, we often had a gift for misrule.
He always wrote in this vein — as a tough-minded and sometimes caustic critic of a left that he never dropped and continued to be linked with. But he always combined skepticism with a commitment to social change, and became a social democrat — “the left-wing of the possible” rather than a believer in radical pieties or self-destructive zealotry.
He also preserved what moved him most from his SDS days: “Everything these people did was charged with intensity.” But his political passion (he was still an activist) was now bound by an incisive, critical mind that didn’t falter in its commitment to universalism. In his book “The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America is Wracked by Culture Wars” (1995), he said the left had become sidetracked by identity politics, multiculturalism and political correctness when it should have been focused on issues like economic justice. He warned then “that the left was more interested in marching on the English department” than in achieving national power. Still, he recognized that the commitment to identity politics meant that specific injustices could be confronted and it would appeal to particular segments of the population.
He had maintained the same commitments into 2020. Gitlin was among the signers of a widely debated and sometimes excoriated letter that appeared in Harper’s Magazine and denounced so-called “cancel culture” and the rush to “swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought.” Gitlin never took refuge in writing as a left academic for scholarly journals. He chose to be a public intellectual who was ready to speak at teach-ins, rallies and conferences; to draft and spread open letters and petitions about numerous causes; to participate in protests and to write op-eds and essays on a moment’s notice for magazines and newspapers. He was always deeply engaged in the political world despite having been chastened by the many times his commitments were left unrealized.
Gitlin also wrote a great deal on media in books like “Inside Prime Time,” “Media Unlimited” and “The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left.” He offered incisive insights into the way media manipulated is viewers controlling their everyday consciousness.
I knew Gitlin as a first–rate and prolific writer and a wide-ranging intellectual, but never as a person. But reading some reminiscences of friends about him after his death brought me a bit closer to his personhood, if not the fullness of his character. One friend wrote that there was “something ever-buoyant about Todd, which I associate with his extraordinary appetite for learning” and “the joy he took in thinking.”
Of the ‘60s radicals, Gitlin was one of the few who publicly continued to confront orthodoxies of every variety, and search for new ways of thinking about politics and achieving change.
- By D.R. Bahlman, Special to The Eagle
PITTSFIELD — Asked by an interviewer in 1997 what he liked best about his work as a newspaper reporter and editor, Grier Horner described it as “one of the greatest jobs for someone who doesn’t have a great attention span. Something exciting happens today and two days later, it’s something else coming up fresh.”
The frantic pace of what has come to be called the “news cycle,” and a steadfast commitment to helping people understand their times and their communities, kept Grier happily engaged for 35 years, 28 of them at this newspaper.
He retired in June 1997, and devoted his powerful creative and intellectual energies to the visual arts. He was a prolific painter: “Runway,” a show of his recent work, is mounted at Berkshire Community College. He also was the proprietor of a popular blog, “Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man.”
Accomplished as he was, he engendered respect, but it was rare for anyone meeting him for the first time to come away from the encounter feeling obliged to call him Mr. Horner. Indeed, the title almost sounds dissonant. To his many friends, colleagues and acquaintances, he was always Grier.
Early on Monday, with his family at his side, Winfield Grier Horner IV died from injuries suffered in a recent fall at his home in Pittsfield. He was 86.
He leaves his wife, the former Barbara “Babbie” Clary — they were married April 16, 1960, in Tarrytown, N.Y.; three children, Shannon Nichols, of Pittsfield, Eric Horner, of Auburn, N.H., and Michael Horner, of Lake Charles, La., and five grandchildren. Calling hours will be from 3 to 5 p.m. Thursday at the Wellington-Dwyer Funeral Home on East Street in Pittsfield.
During Grier’s tenure at the paper, The Eagle’s readers were beneficiaries of the breadth of his interests, his honesty, his empathy with the plight of others, his sense of fairness and his straight-from-the-shoulder writing style. As a reporter covering Pittsfield city government and the business beat, he never pulled a punch in print; prevarication withered before his discerning editor’s eye.
He took a collaborative approach to the delicate task of editing. He’d invite a reporter to a chair at his desk to observe changes he’d made or was contemplating, and to discuss his reasoning.
“Hey. Nice story. I’ve got it up here. I’ve made a few changes. Want to come take a look and see what you think?”
Almost invariably, the changes wrought improvements, and the reporter would leave feeling splendid.
Clarence Fanto, former Sunday editor and managing editor of The Eagle, recalled Grier’s ability to establish “rapport with folks from all walks of life, from hospital, bank and university executives to students and young people embarking on their life’s work.”
Grier inspired his colleagues to do their best work.
“He was the heart, soul and brains of the paper for many years and had a kind, generous temperament,” Fanto said of his friend of 35 years’ standing.
Grier’s page layouts foreshadowed his post-retirement career. They were characteristically stark, powerful visual magnets that drew and held readers’ attention. The layouts, which featured painstakingly chosen typefaces and “odd” column width measurements, originated on a photocopier over which Grier labored, sometimes for hours, wielding black and red Flair pens, scissors, Scotch tape and a ruler. Between bursts of inspiration, he swiped cookies from a composing room foreman’s “secret” drawer.
“Those layouts ... ” former compositor Dan Boino recalled in 1997. “I’d have to keep calling him [in the newsroom] all night to work them out.”
Grier, a native of New York City who grew up in the Hudson River Valley community of Tarrytown, was born June 30, 1935, son of Winfield G. Horner III and Elizabeth Hall Horner. He graduated from Brown University in 1957 and worked at newspapers including, for four years, The [North Adams] Transcript. He came to The Eagle in 1965.
Babbie, his high school sweetheart and a registered nurse, took a job at Berkshire Medical Center.
Several years after joining The Eagle’s reporting staff, Grier secured a six-month journalism fellowship at Stanford University. Having concluded that Eagle reporters were underpaid, he recalled, he raised the issue in a “friendly letter” to The Eagle’s late editor and publisher, Lawrence K. “Pete” Miller, and proposed the formation of an in-house union at the paper.
On his return from California, Grier organized the Eagle News Association, work that displeased some senior managers. Donald Miller, Lawrence Miller’s brother and the company’s chief financial officer, “wouldn’t speak to me,” Grier later recalled.
Ultimately, the association formally was recognized by the company “and Pete held no grudge.”
On March 27, 1978, a state law requiring doctors, teachers, social workers and other “mandated reporters” to notify authorities of suspected child abuse took effect.
Sponsored by the late state Sen. John Fitzpatrick, of Stockbridge, and state Rep. Dennis Duffin, of Lenox, the legislation came about in no small part as a result of Grier’s reporting on the case of 4-year-old Walter Gerwaski III, of Pittsfield. The boy was being beaten by his stepfather and died in late 1975. The stepfather, Calvin T. Cadwell, was convicted of second-degree murder.
Grier’s series of stories, which were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, detailed the failures of the state social service system to follow through on the boy’s day care teacher’s report of suspected abuse.
Apart from his mastery of journalism, Grier’s talents and enthusiasms extended in many directions: bicycling (he thought nothing of pedaling through 100-mile-plus excursions), cooking (his jambalaya was nothing short of superb), small-boat sailing and painting.
“To me, painting is magic performed not with a wand but with a brush,” he once said.
As fine a writer as Grier was, he was hopeless at spelling. He freely admitted this and offered no excuses to counter the razzing he got for being the editor who can’t spell.
Late one night, with deadline looming, Grier was struggling with a headline over a story about then-North Adams Mayor John Barrett III and his often-bitter negotiations with the city’s police union.
Desperate to fill the (odd-measure) column with a double-deck headline that conveyed the mayor’s determination to prevail, Grier settled on folding the expression “going for the jugular” into the headline.
What he intended to refer to was a vein in the neck. What he got was a pain in the neck: He wrote “juggler.” Spell check passed it, and nobody caught it.
If switchboards still lit up, The Eagle’s would have been ablaze the following morning; Grier occasionally was ribbed about the incident for years afterward. He never minded.
A verse by Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet, might stand as an invitation to Grier’s admirers.
“Out beyond ideas, of right-doing and wrongdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
This story has been modified to correct the year of Grier Horner's retirement.
Douglas Trumbull, the Oscar-winning special effects wizard who called New Marlborough home, has died
- By Felix Carroll, The Berkshire Eagle
NEW MARLBOROUGH — With a curiosity fixed toward the stars since childhood, he became the lead mastermind behind the trippy finale for “2001: A Space Odyssey,” the eerie atmospherics of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and the very birth of the universe that opens “The Tree of Life.”
A self-described “mad engineer,” Douglas Trumbull, the special effects expert and director who left Hollywood in the 1980s to perfect his craft and pursue his technological passions here in the Berkshires, died Monday. He was 79.
His daughter, Amy Trumbull, confirmed her father’s death on Facebook, saying he had a “two-year battle with cancer, a brain tumor and a stroke.”
She said: “He was an absolute genius and a wizard, and his contributions to the film and special effects industry will live on for decades and beyond. … My sister Andromeda and I got to see him on Saturday and tell him that we love him, and we got to tell him to enjoy and embrace his journey into the Great Beyond.”
Trumbull, who shared Oscar nominations for best visual effects for “Close Encounters,” “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and “Blade Runner,” moved to the Berkshires in the 1980s, settling on a 50-acre estate in New Marlborough that he made into a home and a state-of the-art workspace, Trumbull Studios.
He shared with The Eagle in 1988 the reason for settling here.
“The kind of work I like to do is experimental, and it takes a lot of time,” he said. “In Los Angeles, the entire business is geared for mass production, television shows, commercials, feature films. … I’ve been looking for an opportunity to slow down and have the chance to experiment inexpensively.”
For a brief time, he ran Berkshire Motion Picture in the former Monument Mills complex in Housatonic, where he and a devoted team created Universal Studios’ “Back to the Future: The Ride” simulator.
In addition to his work with legendary filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg, Trumbull was the go-to guy for CBS, in 1969, when it was preparing to provide live television coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Those were the days before computer graphics.
He devised a newfangled and ingenious graphic display system — it was dubbed “HAL 10,000,” in tribute to HAL 9000, the sentient computer system in “2001” — that included nine projectors capable of displaying, by remote control, any number of variations of diagrams and flight simulations.
“He was a giant in the industry, but he was such a generous soul to everybody who was lucky enough to get in his orbit,” said Kelley Vickery, founder and artistic director of the Berkshire International Film Festival, for which Trumbull shared his time and talents. “He loved nothing more than taking people around his property and sharing his knowledge and love of film and what it is and what it could be. He was a big influence for our film festival, and we’re very grateful.”
“In truth, Doug is the reason we have such a highly developed community of film industry talent in the Berkshires,” said Diane Pearlman, executive director of the Berkshire Film and Media Collaborative, for which Trumbull served as a board member. “Doug taught us to think outside of the box ... to always look to create new ways for films to connect with an audience — whether through higher frames rates, higher resolution filming or incredible visual effects. He pushed the envelope his entire career.”
Trumbull, born April 8, 1942, in Los Angeles, quickly became enamored of rocketry, science fiction, and thoughts of space and of alien life. His mother was an artist. His father was a mechanical engineer for Lockheed Martin and had a brief stint working in Hollywood, including helping to make sure those malevolent monkeys in “The Wizard of Oz” flew their approved flight path.
When Trumbull was a boy, he veered toward fantasy, art and a flight path no one had traveled before.
“My mother died when I was 7, and I was a forlorn kid,” Trumbull told The Eagle in an interview at his New Marlborough home in 2019. “I had a fantasy life emboldened by science fiction — the books of Robert Heinlein and movies such as ‘Destination Moon.’”
After high school, with a portfolio stuffed with his own drawings of space stations and alien planets, he landed a job with NASA, providing illustrations for promotional films of its space program. That led to work on the film “To the Moon and Beyond,” produced by Graphic Films Corp. Shown at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, the film caught the eye of Kubrick and the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark.
In 1966, Trumbull, at age 23, was off to England, working with Kubrick on “2001.” The assignment included building miniature models. Then, for the famous Stargate sequence, Trumbull created a new mechanical process called “slit scan photography.”
“I first just tried to make myself useful to him,” he told The Eagle. By the end of production, Trumbull was a visual effects supervisor. The film took nearly three years of Trumbull’s life and helped revolutionize filmmaking.
In the years to come, Spielberg, Ridley Scott and Terrence Malick would come calling. Trumbull also directed the dystopian sci-fi film “Silent Running” (starring Bruce Dern) and “Brainstorm” (starring Natalie Wood, in her last role).
In recent years, from his shooting stage, workshops and production offices in New Marlborough, he was “working on the future of cinema” and “the future of entertainment,” he had told The Eagle. He developed a high-resolution, 120-frames-per-second 3D filmmaking technology called Magi, which uses a curved screen that he also developed.
In 2012, he received the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, a special technical Oscar for his contributions to the industry. Indeed, Trumbull invented and patented dozens of film tools and techniques, from motion-control photography to miniature compositing.
With regard to intelligent life beyond Earth, Trumbull told The Eagle he considered himself among the “serious and committed believers.” He was friends with the French “ufologist” and astronomer Jacques Vallee, who served as inspiration for Francois Truffaut’s character in Spielberg’s “Close Encounters.”
Though much of his life was spent on matters beyond this planet, Trumbull deeply was committed to the people and place where he called home. He told The Eagle in 2019, “I came to the Berkshires because it’s home to a lot of creative people — writers, artists, musicians — as good as anything you’ll find in LA.”
In addition to his two daughters from a previous marriage, he is survived by his wife, Julia, her three children, and many grandchildren.
The family said in a statement that, “In Trumbull’s memory and his love of the giant screen, we hope that you will support your local theaters.”
- By Francesca Paris, The Berkshire Eagle
Dr. Paul Farmer, a North Adams native and co-founder of the global organization Partners in Health, died Monday in Rwanda. He was 62.
He died unexpectedly in his sleep, the organization said Monday.
Farmer was a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and chief of the division of global health equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He was a physician and anthropologist, best known for bringing high-quality medical care to people who needed it most across the world.
Farmer was born in North Adams in 1959, according to the book “Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World,” an account of his life and work by journalist Tracy Kidder. The family moved out of Massachusetts when Farmer was young, first to Alabama, then to Florida.
“His family had deep roots in the community,” said state Rep. John Barrett III. “Everyone knew the Farmers.”
Farmer spent his life trying to stop infectious diseases and deliver medical care in under-resourced places, such as Haiti, Russia, Peru, Cuba and parts of the U.S. His successes inspired and paved the way for others, say the people who remember him.
“He was a great doctor,” Kidder told The Eagle. “He built hospitals. He made the world recognize the fact that you could treat AIDS, you could treat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, in desperately poor places. I think his dream was a movement that would make sure that everybody had good health.”
As a college graduate and later as a doctor, Farmer built up a medical infrastructure in Cange, a remote village in the central plateau of Haiti. After receiving a medical degree from Harvard University, he traveled nonstop between his job in Boston and his work in Haiti, where he would scale mountains to visit patients at home in remote areas.
With friends and funding, he built his community clinic into a large-scale hospital system and founded Partners in Health, a Boston-based organization that now treats millions of patients across the world.
Eunice Tassone, a North Adams native who leads the nonprofit Haiti Plunge, has spent decades traveling with high school students on service trips to Haiti. She would catch up with Farmer, a friend, on airplanes and in airports going to and from the country.
“He’s going to be a tremendous loss to the global health world,” she said. “He did amazing things. You can literally visualize Paul, with his stethoscope, running up and down the mountains.”
Farmer was tireless in his belief that people were capable of caring for themselves if given the right tools, she says. When HIV struck, he brought lifesaving drugs into the mountains and taught village health workers how to distribute them so that patients could take their medications at the right time of day.
Days after the 2010 earthquake, Farmer returned to Haiti with a team of volunteers to provide emergency aid. Three years later, Partners in Health opened a 300-bed, solar-powered hospital in Mirebalais, north of Port-au-Prince.
“He built the most wonderful hospital,” said Tassone. “It’s magnificent. It was a statement to the rest of the world that people of any category of life could have access to the best of health care.”
Farmer criticized developed nations, including the U.S., for failing to provide decent health care to their residents, she says.
“He wrote a great deal about systemic injustice,” said Tassone. “He nails affluent countries that could provide better care for our own people. He was very critical of the insurance companies, the drug companies. … He didn’t spend a whole lot of time here either, cause he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”
He would return from abroad in predictable intervals to fulfill his teaching duties and give lectures, in turn inspiring a generation of doctors, she says. Then he would get on yet another plane. He worked nonstop and wrote books in the hours he could spare from teaching and seeing patients.
“I’m surprised he died in his sleep,” said Tassone. “Because he rarely slept.”
For Kidder, traveling with the tireless doctor remains “the most exhilarating experience of my life.”
Kidder sees in Farmer’s legacy something deeply hopeful: A sense that the doctor forced the world to acknowledge that even the most challenging global health problems are not insurmountable.
“I really hate the thought of the world without him,” said Kidder. “I know there are many people who are just grief struck. I share their sadness. He did a lot, he could have done a lot more. But that’s not the whole story. It is possible for other people to go on. It is possible to carry on his work.”
Farmer leaves behind his wife, Didi Bertrand Farmer, and his three children.
- By Jim Therrien, Bennington Banner
POWNAL, Vt. — John C. Tietgens, a businessman and horse owner who purchased the former Green Mountain Race Track at auction in 1993, hoping to revive horse racing there, died Sunday, at 98.
Tietgens, of Clarksburg, also owned the former J.T. Bus Lines, providing bus service to school districts for 58 years.
Clarksburg Town Administrator Carl McKinney remembers riding those buses to school as a kid.
“He was a pillar of the community, a generous gentleman,” McKinney said. “I have nothing but good things to say about him.”
State Rep. John Barrett III, former mayor of North Adams, said Tietgens was a generous, active member of the community, which was reflected in his dealings with the school district.
Barrett said Tietgens would stand firm on the contract price for bus service for the schools. Then, "he would turn around and donate generously to the school department. He was a good businessman and a gentleman in every sense of the word."
Tietgens only reluctantly gave up on his dream of reviving horse racing in Pownal in 2004, when he sold the 144-acre property in Pownal to a group of investors.
“John was a great patriot and family man, and the kind of guy you like to meet in your life,” said Jim Winchester, owner of a store across Route 7 from the track site.
Winchester moved to Pownal during the heyday of thoroughbred and harness racing at Green Mountain, which opened in 1963, working there as the race starter. He later opened Winchester’s Store as the track shifted to greyhound racing in the late 1970s and later closed entirely.
Tietgens, despite failing eyesight, had remained healthy until recently, Winchester said, adding, “His mind was sharp; he was in great shape.”
Auction surprise
Winchester described the 1993 foreclosure auction at the racetrack with Tietgens and three bidders from Connecticut, who were the only ones prepared to put up a required $25,000 down payment if successful in the bidding.
The Rooney family, owners of the Pittsburgh Steelers, had purchased the track from the original ownership group during the 1970s and had set up a greyhound track in the middle of the horse track, eventually switching to dog racing only.
The family had paid a reported $8.5 million for the track in 1973 and “expected it would sell for more,” Winchester said.
Instead, Tietgens entered the high bid of $250,000 and became the owner. That figure was as high as Tietgens was prepared to go, Winchester said, but no one bid any higher.
After the auction, Tietgens expressed shock to reporters that he was the winning bidder. When the auctioneer tried to open bidding at $1 million, there was no response, and no response at $500,000 or $300,000, before Tietgens bid $200,000.
Another bidder offered $225,000, but Tietgens went up to $250,000, and there were no other bids.
Tietgens then tried several times, with a number of potential partners, to restore horse racing, in part because he had been a longtime owner/trainer with horses at the Pownal track.
“John had some good horses,” Winchester said. “There were eight or 10 good horsemen in the North Adams area at the time.”
Casino bid
The horse racing plan that garnered the most attention, statewide and nationally, was Tietgens’ proposal during the mid-1990s to partner with Eric Nelson, of Las Vegas, to create a facility offering casino gambling and racing.
Stiff opposition from anti-gambling advocates in the area, many Vermont lawmakers and, finally, from then-Gov. Howard Dean killed the proposal.
Other proposals over the next few years seemed to come close to reviving Green Mountain as a horse track before collapsing over regulatory, financing or other obstacles.
“I think the times were just against him,” Winchester said. “Tracks were closing up, and states were getting into gambling.”
Despite the failure to restore racing, “John did a lot of good for Pownal,” Winchester said.
During his tenure owning the property, he said, a Lollapalooza concert in 1996 drew about 30,000 people to the area; large-scale bingo events to benefit the Shriners charities were well-attended, as were antique auto shows.
Several events planned under recent ownership groups have failed to materialize, including a 2015 rock concert that was canceled shortly before the date.
A 2010 proposal involving a planned 29-megawatt biomass power generating plant was abandoned amid fierce opposition from area residents and residents from nearby Berkshire County, over projected stack emission problems.
In addition, the imposing vacant former track grandstand was left a blackened hulk after a nighttime fire in 2020.
Born in 1923
According to an obituary, Tietgens was born in North Adams in 1923 and went on to serve in the Army during World War II, in the European and Pacific theaters.
He married his late wife, the former Ellen G. Shields, in 1944, and they were married just over 73 years when she died 2017.
The Paciorek Funeral Home in Adams is in charge of arrangements.
NORTH ADAMS — On Thursday, friends and family of Dennis Bernardi gathered to mourn the loss of a man described as hardworking and giving, ever liable to help when someone needed a hand.
“He was always someone who would greet you with a smile, and was always willing to help people,” said North Adams Mayor Jennifer Macksey.
Bernardi, 71, was a contractor and carpenter who purchased, rehabilitated and sold homes in the North Adams area.
Macksey said she knew Dennis for “almost my whole life,” and remembered him as a local contractor who seemed to always have that hard-to-find item for a household project on hand.
“If you ever needed something that you couldn’t find in the store, you could ask Dennis, and he had it somewhere,” she said. “He was a collector of anything you needed for a house.”
Dave Thayer said he lives nearby Bernardi’s home in Clarksburg, and worked with him on homes, specializing in installing insulated concrete floors. Bernardi would travel around scouting for materials for his home renovations — and when he acquired a critical mass of items, he purchased another fixer-upper and went right back to work.
“We can bump into each other any time to sit there and start talking, pick up where we left off,” he said. “He was just a good friend.”
The two would banter on job sites, Thayer said, adding that Bernardi owned property around the city of North Adams.
Sometimes, also working on Bernardi’s projects would be 36-year-old William Gingerich.
Gingerich worked for Bernardi “on and off for a couple of years,” Thayer said. Bernardi was known to offer a helping hand to those facing hard times, he said, and had offered Gingerich, whose family said he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a place to stay on his Clarksburg property.
“And he always helped people down on their luck,” said Thayer. “He [Dennis] was trying to help him [Gingerich] out, give him a place off the street.”
In a turn of events that shocked many, Gingerich is now charged with murder and kidnapping in connection with Bernardi’s death, according to the Berkshire District Attorney’s office.
Police performed a well- being check on Bernardi on Feb. 23 after it was noticed that Bernardi’s truck was missing from his driveway for a few days, and authorities found him at home deceased.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined the cause of his death was homicide. Bernardi is survived by three siblings, including a twin sister, as well as the numerous nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, his obituary states.
Authorities with a warrant arrested Gingerich in the western New York town of Lewiston, along the Canadian border. His first court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday in Northern Berkshire District Court, where he’s set to be arraigned on the charges.
The DA’s office says it is withholding details about the crime until that arraignment.
Friend of the family Jeannie Poplaski filtered out of Flynn & Dagnoli Funeral Home on Thursday, where cars crowded the parking lot as friends and family of Bernardi came to pay their respects.
Echoing others who reflected on their memories of Bernardi, Poplaski said he was friendly and thoughtful, and forgiving.
“He was a guy who would do anything for anyone, and he wasn’t judgmental,” she said.
Jack O'Brien never stopped playing.
If there was one way to describe the former Monument Mountain Spartan on the football field, that would be it. Despite the fact that he injured his shoulder just a couple of weeks into his senior season in 2019. No matter what aspect of life it might have been, he lived it to the fullest.
This past March, Jack O’Brien passed away. The former Monument Mountain football captain was riding snowmobiles in the Adirondacks with a couple of friends and his snowmobile left a groomed trail and crashed into trees. He was only 20 years old.
The Monument Mountain football team has dedicated this season to O’Brien and on Friday, the team had a special halftime ceremony to honor him and his family. Not just his passing, but to commemorate the type of person and player he was to both the team and the people around him.
When it comes to O’Brien as a player, the thing coaches and players will always remember about him was his dedication to the team above all else.
“He persevered through that [senior year shoulder] injury and he did everything he could to keep playing,” said Monument offensive coordinator Chris D’Aniello. “We tried braces, we got physical therapy, he really had a torn apart shoulder to the point where it was so bad he was literally in pain but he just wouldn’t take no for an answer. He wouldn’t stop, he wouldn’t quit, he didn’t want to let his teammates down. He was that type of person and that was his take on life too.”
“Biggest heart, I remember the first year I coached, and he’s one of the biggest guys out there and he’s just a sophomore,” recalled Monument head coach Chris Tucci. “And I’m coaching the linebackers and he’s still a new player. So I’m coaching him up and he’s just not getting physical enough. So at the end of the practice I go, ‘You know Jack, I’m really disappointed, I really wanted you to be more physical, I expected more out of you, you’re playing really tentatively.’
“And I didn’t think much of the conversation, and he took it so hard. He came in practice the next day, he was crying, he was so concerned about doing a good job on the field, like he really wanted to be a great teammate, a great player. It’s such a gift as a coach to have someone who has such a heart and love for the sport. That they are so committed. He put his body on the line but he put his heart on the line, too.”
And it wasn’t just about playing hard, although that’s a part of it. But the way he interacted with the younger players on the team when he was a senior left a lasting impression on the current crop of Monument seniors.
“I can remember vividly [as a freshman], his mom giving me a ride home and her saying how he liked me and I remember that being the biggest deal to me,” said Monument senior captain Andrew Albert. “He always welcomed us with open arms and introduced us to everybody. Hung out with us after school even [when we were] at that younger age and it meant the world. That was the guy you looked up to. And to get to spend time with him meant the world.”
“He’s a great leader, and he was kind of like, The senior, he was the one I really looked up to and I think a lot of other guys did, too,” added fellow senior captain Grant Chase. “I remember a captains' practice, before the season even started that he was running. I think there were probably like eight of us there. So we just did like a four-on-four game. And I think he just said something like, that I was fast and that made my day. I was so happy that he said that.”
“Coming into play varsity football as a freshman is a scary thing and having a captain and a leader like Jack to take you under his wing and guide you on what it’s all about is something really special,” senior captain Nick Henderson said. “I wouldn’t have picked anyone else in the world to lead me other than him. Just the kind of, put the team on your back mentality that Jack had really. Just I think it formed me into the football player that I am today. He taught me so much, I looked up to him so much, just everything he did for me, I can’t thank him enough.”
O’Brien wore No. 36 and on the field there was a large No. 36 with pyrotechnics at halftime. His jersey was also carried out for the opening coin toss and his family was honored as well.
“Planning on doing everything we can do to make the family feel like they’re part of this football team,” said Albert on Wednesday. “Which they very much are. Try and put his legacy in the best light we can and we intend on doing that.”
Gone but not forgotten is often uttered when someone passes and for good reason. When it comes to O’Brien, however, it isn’t just the memories and interactions people had with him that won’t be forgotten.
It’s the way he treated the freshmen on the football team as a senior that showed them how to be good teammates and upperclassmen. That they carried on his legacy, and that hopefully will pass on to the next generation of Monument football players, and will keep being passed on.
“These guys here are the same way,” explained D’Aniello. “That’s transcended onto them, they've acquired that same mentality, to put the team on their backs. They really are dedicated athletes so what they've learned from Jack they’re carrying that along. That’s a lifelong message.”
“Jack’s legacy is, love your teammate,” Tucci said.
BECKET — Author, journalist and book reviewer Richard “Dick” Lipez, who wrote editorials for The Berkshire Eagle for many years and was a member of the newspaper’s advisory board, died of cancer at his home in Becket on Wednesday. He was 83.
Lipez had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in April, according to sculptor Joe Wheaton, his husband. They had been together for 32 years.
In the early 1960s, Lipez, a native of Lock Haven, Pa., served in the Peace Corps, where he taught school in Ethiopia, and later worked as a Peace Corps program evaluator based in Washington. He originally came to the Berkshires to work for an anti-poverty agency because he was tired of living in the city, Wheaton said.
“He was totally unqualified for the job, but he talked his way into it,” said Wheaton, who met Lipez in the Berkshires. “He is somebody who has always been an advocate for the underrepresented.”
Lipez, one of the founding members and a former president of the Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition, was a prolific writer. He wrote numerous books under the pseudonym Richard Stevenson, ‘“which is his middle name,” Wheaton said. They included the Donald Strachey private eye series, which is being filmed by Here TV, a gay television network. He co-authored “Grand Scam” with Peter Stein, and contributed to “Crimes on the Scene: A Mystery Guide for the International Traveler.”
Wheaton said Lipez wrote about 16 murder mysteries, based on Strachey, who was a gay character. They started in the pre-AIDs days, when things were “pretty wild,” Wheaton said.
“They really chronicled the issues of gay life,” Wheaton said. “I think they are something that people will read for anthropological or sociological [reasons]. They really chronicle what was going on at the time.
“He was a real mensch,” Wheaton said. Mensch is a Yiddish word often used to describe a person of integrity and honor. “He spoke up when there was an injustice. ... He was full of conviction and always ready to jump in and get to work.”
His reporting, reviews and fiction appeared in many publications, including The Boston Globe, Newsday, The Progressive, The Washington Post and Harper’s, in addition to The Eagle. He also reviewed books for The Post, and was known for his unique style.
“He was damn funny as a writer,” Wheaton said.
Retired former Eagle editorial page editor Bill Everhart said the paper’s late managing editor, Don MacGillis, brought Lipez to the newspaper as a freelance editorial writer in the early 1990s.
“He was a specialist, primarily in foreign affairs,” Everhart said, “and he would occasionally write about national politics.
“He was very knowledgeable, extremely knowledgeable about foreign affairs in particular,” Everhart said. “He was very well-informed, a very graceful writer and extremely reliable.
“He was also a good guy,” he added. “Very low key, with a dry sense of humor.”
Lipez’s editorials for The Eagle did not require much editing.
“They were always on time and never needed any work,” Everhart said. “They went in the paper the way they came in.
“He was a total pro as a writer. Just a consummate pro,” he said. “There was never anything in his editorials that was extraneous or redundant or unclear.”
“He was a wonderful character of expansive interests and great imagination,” said fellow Berkshire Eagle advisory board member Linda Greenhouse, via email. “The kind of person who actually ‘knew everyone.’”
Lipez grew up in Lock Haven, which is in central Pennsylvania, “kind of in the middle of nowhere,” Wheaton said. His father was a sportscaster who ran the local radio station. One of his relatives was a judge.
He attended Pennsylvania State University, but left to join the Peace Corps in 1962, after a recruiter visited the school.
“He was among the first group to go into Ethiopia,” Wheaton said. “He was an English teacher there for two years.”
Living in Ethiopia was kind of a “formative experience for him,” Wheaton said. “It changed his life in a profound way.
“Outside of Manhattan and Philadelphia, he had never really been anywhere else except Lock Haven,” Wheaton said. “Here was a very developing country.”
Wheaton said he recently received an email from the daughter of Worku Sharew, one of Lipez’s former students, who had been a shepherd in Ethiopia. Lipez and his wife, Hedy, who also served in the Peace Corps, brought Sharew to the United States to go to school.
“Dick recognized this kid was smart and curious,” Wheaton said.
That student’s daughter recently graduated from Smith College in Northampton and is at the Cleveland Clinic, studying to be a brain surgeon, “because there are no brain surgeons in Ethiopia,” Wheaton said.
“That was the impact that this one guy had who left town and took an interest in the world outside,” Wheaton said.
Lipez is survived by his daughter, Sydney, an elementary school teacher in Scarsdale, N.Y., and his son, Zack, a writer who lives in New York City. Hedy Lipez died from COVIID-19 last year, according to Wheaton.
- By Ruth Bass
RICHMOND — The Berkshires lost two remarkable men this month, two people whose lives were lived below celebrity radar but who had impact on a wide circle of people, their friends and people they never met. They were Dick Lipez, of Becket, and Ken Keehnle, mostly of Pittsfield.
They impacted me, each in his own way, but both through thinking and writing. They probably were never in the same room at the same time, but each was free to think out loud with their columns in the Berkshire Sampler where I was the editor for 10 years in the ’70s and ’80s.
College educated, Peace Corps volunteer, community activist and novelist, Dick had a special, multi-faceted view of life. He wrote a column that was both intellectual and hilarious, emanating from a mind that produced deep thoughts in a readable way, often injected with his unique twists of humor. He could make a reader think and laugh out loud.
Very tall and deep-voiced, Dick was always worth seeking out in a group, just to hear what he had to say about anything on a given day. His Sampler columns — his first writings for The Eagle — started before I worked there and were an editor’s joy. No mistakes, nothing to fix, crisp and thoughtful and often funny.
I still remember one about the couple, written way before anyone talked about helicopter parents, who kept their toddler in a giant Tupperware container to make sure the world didn’t hurt him in any way. One senses that his two talented offspring probably grew up in a less constrictive atmosphere than that.
We were email, Christmas card, casual encounter, longtime friends, and I treasured his support of my writing, actually saving some of his notes. Still, I learned many new facets of Dick’s life from the recent Eagle story and the obituary, both wonderfully written. But I would disagree that his gay detective was perhaps his greatest legacy.
Nothing will last longer than the effect he had on hundreds of people who considered him a friend, plus those he helped to a better life or inspired to think, always without seeking a credit. One notable example was when, with no fanfare, he and his husband, Joe Wheaton, gave a home to a terminally ill man and took care of him through his last days.
And then there was Kenny, author of What Ken Thinks in the Berkshire Sampler. Blue collar, semipro football player, coach of kids’ sports, library patron, lover of Italian opera and pressman at The Eagle, Kenny turned out print daily in the bowels of the newspaper and was put in print weekly from the third floor of the same building. A fascinating mix of a guy who adored his wife, admired women and teased us about his unabashed like for “watching the girls walk by” when pressmen sat on the ledge of the Eagle Street building during break.
He was not an editor’s joy from the standpoint of fixing. Ken’s copy came in written in pencil on yellow lined paper. No one else was allowed to submit copy like that. Sometimes we had to consult on identifying a particular word because Kenny apparently missed the Palmer penmanship drills that so many of us endured in school. In addition, syntax and spelling and punctuation required attention.
But we loved his thoughts, whether we agreed with them or not. And he had an audience. So we edited, cautious to resist “improving” the column and concentrating on making certain that it was Kenny’s voice, not the editor’s, that could be heard on the page.
We must have succeeded because he would pop in the next week, not complaining about what we edited, and hand us his latest. His column and his visits had an impact on us beyond his life view. He was at ease in a roomful of college degrees and left us a little more humble about the real value of those. His self-education and willingness to put his thoughts on the line had an impact on us.
Two good men. Gone and not forgettable.
- By Larry Parnass, The Berkshire Eagle
PITTSFIELD — Miguel Angel Estrella, the 22-year-old aspiring tradesman shot and killed a week ago by Pittsfield police, will be buried Saturday after an invitation-only funeral.
On Friday afternoon, people came through a Pittsfield funeral home to say goodbye to the man they knew as "Miggy."
In time, a report will render the official judgment as to whether Pittsfield police were justified in shooting Estrella twice in the chest late March 25 outside his home in the Bartlett School Apartments on Onota Street, after twice being called to reports of a distraught man with a knife. Estrella was in obvious distress after drinking and had been cutting himself.
People who knew and loved Estrella can’t believe his life ended this way.
Estrella’s sister, Elina, has started a crowdfunding campaign in her brother’s memory, dubbed "Long Live Miggy." On it, she writes: “Miguel was a big part of his community. He was loved by many, he had so many plans. It’s a tragedy that could have been prevented. … Everyone involved who failed him in his time of need will feel their wrongdoing.”
“Mental health crisis should not be a death sentence,” she wrote. Estrella is also survived by his mother, Marisol Estrella, and a brother, Jean Carlos, as well as his girlfriend, Daneya Falwell.
For the past week, Estrella’s friends, mentors and co-workers have struggled to speak of him in the past tense, as they shared stories about a person they describe as warm-hearted, playful, generous, respectful and community-minded.
His closest friends, when asked what people should know about Estrella’s life, said this: “Your past doesn’t define you.”
Here are some of their stories.
Robert Jefferson, a former outreach worker for the Pittsfield Community Connection program who had known Estrella for years and once had temporary custody of him:
He was like my kid. I spent more time with him than I did my own kid. Up until recently, you know, he still called me every day. He was a good kid. He's just misunderstood a lot of the time. People like him get swept under the rug a lot. They forget about who they are and what they need — stuff like that.
Even in trouble, I was the go-to. I’d just go with him to hell and back. And I'd go back with him. He shouldn't be gone right now. That's a fact. I just wish, I'd had enough time to get to him. But unfortunately, I didn't.
Debbie Vall, a community member and friend of Estrella:
He was going to be going to McCann [Technical School in North Adams] this year because he wanted to be an electrician. That has been his dream for as long as I can remember.
He's not just a statistic. He's just not another Hispanic man. He is a person. He had hopes and he had dreams and he had plans for his future. And he was going after those plans with full force. He had faced a lot of adversity and he had a lot of barriers, a lot of barriers. But he struggled and he was always smiling.
Tayshia Hoisington is the sister of Estrella’s girlfriend, Daneya Falwell:
When I first met Miggy, oh my god was he loud! I looked at my sister, like, “Who is this?” But my family learned to love him, like they all love him. He comes around every single holiday. He made my family laugh.
Miggy was hands down the funniest person. You could be in the worst mood and he'll find something to just light you up. What I'm gonna miss the most is every single morning him and my sister used to wake me up just laughing about nothing – about nothing.
When I first first met him, all I did was shake my head. He had a lot of energy. But as years went by, I've seen him grow a whole lot. The Miggy we know to this day, that was not him a couple years ago. Like he's changed a lot for the better. He had a plan, a set goal, and he was ready to move forward. Which is why he motivated me a lot.
He realized he's getting older and he wants to accomplish things. He was working really hard, even with my sister, and helping motivate her. He was taken away too soon.
Daneya Falwell, who lived with Estrella as his girlfriend, said he had been suffering from depression:
Everything he's been through, losing a lot of friends. He was talking about losing his friends. He wasn't happy. He just struggled with a lot. He wasn't hurting anybody at all. He wasn't a threat to nobody ... but himself.
We were going to buy a house. We were going to have a vacation in May. We can't do none of that. He was my future. He helped me get a job. He said even if you don’t, I got the bills, don't worry about it. … He had just started living.
Carolyn Valli, CEO of Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity, where Estrella worked after graduating from a construction training program:
We all know him in many-faceted ways. And all of them are good.
I've known him for over seven years. He has gone through ups and downs, but every single time there's been a down, he's come to me and said, “I'm going through this" or "I'm going through that." "What do you think about this?” And he's always been resilient and putting together a plan about how to overcome that.
About six months ago, he was just going to pick somebody up at his house and his car got shot up. They called the police. Miguel told me this firsthand. He said, “The first thing [the police] said to me is, ‘Miguel, we thought you got out of that life.’ And he said ‘I'm not in that life.’” He was the one who was victimized, yet he was being villainized. I can only imagine if that bias came to the site [of the shooting] on Friday.
I tried calling the police department [at the time] and their big concern was, “Can you get him to tell us who did it?” And he was like, “I won't do that.” Because we all know what that means in the street, that means you will be dead.
So he was not going to do that. He came to me probably two weeks later, because he kept hearing from whoever it was that shot up the car. He said [the shooter] was going to go to [a Habitat work site] one day. And he said to me, “I can't put you guys at risk. I didn't do anything wrong, but I'm not gonna have any of you die.” Because, you know, that's the person he was – that he cared more about other people than he did for his own safety.
When I got the call [that he'd been shot], I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't understand how if somebody was self-harming themselves, why you didn't take them and bring them to Jones [the psychiatric department at Berkshire Medical Center]. That's the piece that I don't get at all.
They're saying that he was advancing on police. I absolutely do not believe that. Because that is not who he is.
Gail Krumpholz, a community member who has known Estrella since he was young:
What a wonderful human being this young man was; his life was cut too short. We want to make sure, all of us, that he is presented as the wonderful human being that we all knew, and were working with, from the age of 15 or 16 years old.
Kendell Thompson, a friend of Estrella:
He overcame a lot of adversity. You know, since he was 14, he changed his life around a lot. He got his GED. Went on to a program out in Boston. Got his life together. Came back here. He got himself together and did great things. He was a great human being. He didn't deserve that.
Always did good things for others – and the community. He did good for his community. He'd pick up community service at the schools. Always paid rent for his mother.
John Schnauber, a social worker who had known Estrella for seven years:
He did a lot of jobs for the community. He worked at the farmers market. Anytime that he was needed by any of his friends, and by the community itself, he was there. All we had to do was ask him. I mean, he had a beautiful soul. He really did.
He had life situations that led him in different ways. And honestly, it's just the way the world is nowadays. It's the way that he was left to grow up. The system is so unjust. This was almost a foreseeable outcome.
These kids walk home from school getting guns pulled out on them. They are not safe. And there's not [anything] being done about the kids needing help. They need a home, they need somebody to care, that's what they need — and nobody in this community will give them a place to even be safe.
People go to City Council meetings and they ask for programs for their children or a drop-in center. I've been to them recently when [officials are] walking around and saying "We’ve got $31 million" or whatever, "to hand out." But not for that. Not for them.
Orrin Powell, a human services worker, now employed by 18 Degrees:
There was a change in Miggy. He wanted better. And he did better. He chose to want to improve his life with work, with aspirations of getting a house, improving his credit. That's the biggest thing for me, the change in him. He wanted it and he was seeking it out. He was driving his own vehicle towards success. And that's not an easy feat. Change is not easy. And he was changing every day.
Dubois Thomas, Habitat staffer who worked with Estrella:
I had some dealings with Miguel over the last several years. Miguel understood that it wasn't just a light switch to flip, and then life would just change.
He knew it was going to be a day-to-day thing. It's just a travesty that for young men that look like Miguel and I, a bad day or a mistake is the end of your life. He didn't deserve that. I'm at a complete loss in my imagination for how that could have gone down that way.
Rachel Hanson, a licensed social worker who had known Estrella since he was a young teen participating in the Pittsfield Community Connection mentoring program:
Miguel was a good person. He was there for his community. He was there for his friends. He worked really hard. He shoveled driveways for the elderly.
He overcame so much adversity. There were things that he went through in his life and there were ways that he struggled. He was a good person and he cared about other people deeply. It's tragic, what happened to him. Absolutely tragic. It shouldn't have happened.
He struggled in different ways, at different times, for different periods of time. There were times that he was in really dark places. And he had people around him that were able to help him – his friends, you know, people he could call on.
He always came back to a point where he knew he wanted to be successful. He knew he wanted to get out. It wasn't just for him. It was for him, his friends, his family. His dream wasn't just solo. He was a natural born leader.
He wanted it for everyone. He worked so hard to be able to be successful. And he touched so many people and allowed them to believe in themselves. He’s going to leave a hole in our lives. Forever, forever. And it's gonna affect so many people.
Miguel brought people around to the [PCC] program. He realized that there were a lot of people who could benefit. We had dinners where we had kids in the community come over and serve each other food – and not only do that, but make the food together, as a whole big family.
Miguel was at the head of that. He brought people over and he wanted to do more.
He was so resilient. It was genuine. It came from his soul. It's what drove him. It's what drove him every day.
Brent Getchell, a construction manager at Habitat who worked with Estrella:
So many people cared about Miguel. We took him in. He was an employee of Habitat because we felt strongly that he was going somewhere. And that he was teachable, trainable, respectful. He treated everyone kind of even-keeled.
When the pandemic hit, him and I were the only ones on the job site for what seemed like forever. I worked side by side with him and spent eight hours a day with the guy, every day, and he became one of my best friends.
We had a shooting at a job site, in the intersection, about a year ago. A guy got out of the car, walked around the corner and shot four shots into a house, then went up the street and shot a couple more shots.
Within five minutes, we had eight or nine cruisers show up. Once they saw Miguel, it didn't matter who else was on the job site. One police officer approached Miguel and [asked] what was going on, what's happening. “Why are they shooting at you?” And Miguel's like, “I'm not in that. I work. You can see I'm working full time for Habitat. I don't have time for that stuff. I just want to make sure the people here are okay."
It turns out it had nothing to do with Miguel. It just happened in that neighborhood. Even though I considered the police officer to be harassing Miguel, Miguel maintained a very respectful demeanor. Very respectful, probably more so than I would have.
Last Friday night? I don't know what happened. I could speculate. I just know he was done wrong. And so was the community. Because we lost such a great, great person that was going places.
Elizabeth Walker, a community member who knew Estrella:
He was working so hard to bring his family up, stable and good. But right along with it, he was bringing this community up – and he had every intention to keep doing that. It wasn't ever just about him. I think everybody feels like family, because he made us feel that way. Like you were taken care of … and he would have our back.
PITTSFIELD — Attorney Wendy Taylor Linscott, a longtime community advocate, college classmate of Hillary Clinton and member of The Eagle’s advisory board, died on Tuesday at Berkshire Medical Center of complications from a rare form of cancer. She was 74.
The Egremont resident’s passing occurred 14 months after the death of her husband and law partner, James Lamme III, who also died of cancer at the age of 74 in February 2021.
The daughter of the late Roger Linscott, who won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1972 while working for The Berkshire Eagle, Wendy Linscott had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in October, according to her daughter, Taylor Lamme.
“To quote her oncologist, it was a rare and tricky cancer,” Linscott’s daughter said. “They didn’t know where it originated.”
Despite her diagnosis, Linscott continued to work at the Great Barrington law firm Lamme and Linscott that she operated jointly with her late husband. In 1974, James Lamme founded the firm that became Lamme and Linscott after his wife joined in 1980.
“She went to the office Monday morning,” said Taylor Lamme, who lives in San Francisco. “People were flabbergasted to know she was still going into the office.”
The Lammes, who had lived in Egremont since 1986, would have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on May 30, 2021. They made a great team, their daughter said.
“It always surprised people to hear that they were married and they worked together,” Lamme said. “I think there was something really special about the way they balanced each other out. They were both passionate about local causes.”
Linscott, who earned her law degree from the University of Connecticut Law School in 1979, loved the law and took great pleasure in serving the community.
“One of the things she loved about being a small-town lawyer was getting to know her clients,” Lamme said.
Linscott also served as a trustee of the Berkshire Natural Resources Council, The Egremont Land Trust and The Berkshire Botanical Garden, and was a member of Egremont’s Planning Board from 1988 to 1994. She played an instrumental role in helping to preserve Jug End Reservation in Egremont from developers in the mid-1980s, an event that led to the forming of The Egremont Land Trust.
A member of the Ethics Committee of Fairview Hospital, Linscott had previously served on the boards of Community Health Programs, Edith Wharton Reservation, Berkshire Choral Festival, Southern Berkshire Visiting Nurse Association and Lenox Club.
A 1969 honors graduate of Wellesley College, Linscott was also a former board member of the Berkshire Wellesley Club. She was classmates with Hillary Clinton at Wellesley, according to retired educator and nonprofit executive Phil Deely of Stockbridge, who first met Linscott when they were in high school.
“That group of young women had a meeting in the White House after Bill Clinton was elected,” Deely said, “and Wendy was a part of that.”
Born in New York City on June 4, 1947 to Roger Linscott and Lucy Ann Richardson Goodlatte Linscott, Wendy Linscott grew up in Richmond and graduated from Pittsfield High School. Deely, who attended Berkshire School in Sheffield, accompanied Linscott to social events when they were teenagers.
Deely said Linscott’s intelligence always stood out.
“The defining characteristic of her in many ways was her intellect,” he said. “She was really smart. In many ways she was a feminist a decade before that became trendy.
“What I mean by that is that she was an independent thinker, and she spoke her mind,” Deely said. “A lot of this I think she inherited from her father, who was the voice of The Berkshire Eagle when I was growing up.
“It was just always impressive.”
Georgeanne Rousseau of Lenox and her husband met Linscott and Lamme in 1990 after they moved to the Berkshires from London.
“She was excellent company,” Rousseau said. “She always had a great sense of humor, loved all kinds of music and the theater and spent a long, long, long time in a book group. She was always well read and had books around the house, both she and Jim. They read more than they watched TV.”
“Wendy was a wonderful woman,” Deely said. “Her death just reminds us of all that she brought to life in the Berkshires. She could have worked in a big time law firm anywhere in the U.S. and chose to live and practice in Berkshire County.
“I think we’re all very fortunate when we have people like that.”
Linscott is survived by her daughter, two sisters, Becky Linscott and Vicky Linscott of Sandisfield, and seven nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her husband and a sister, Judith Linscott.
A memorial service for Wendy Linscott will be scheduled later this year, her daughter said Thursday. Donations in Linscott’s name can be made to the John S. Watson Fund, Construct Inc., and the Elizabeth Freeman Center.
- By Alec MacGillis
There were two camps among the students who took European history with Charles “Chuck” Gilson at Pittsfield High School in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s: those who most celebrated his reenactment of El Cid’s corpse being propped on his steed in full armor to rally the troops during the siege of Valencia, and those who preferred his rendering of the death of Rasputin. I was in the latter camp. Of all Mr. Gilson’s instructive antics, nothing compared to his staging of the laborious assassination of the mysteriously influential Siberian holy man who in 1916 survived poisoning by potassium cyanide and several shots from a revolver before finally being drowned.
You might think late-Romanov Russian history would have been a tough sell for Pittsfield teenagers at the end of the Cold War, which was when I took the class, but only if you’d never experienced the pedagogic whirlwind that was Mr. Gilson, then a 50-ish man with oversize glasses, a legendary multihued combover, and wolfish smile, who for several decades staggered across the classroom as the indefatigable Mad Monk, among other roles.
As my classmates and I entered high school in the late 1980s, General Electric had just closed its huge electrical transformer division in Pittsfield, the new Berkshire Mall was accelerating the decline of North Street, and the city’s population decline, from a peak of 58,000 in 1960 to 44,000 today, was well underway. But somehow, thanks to the tax base, social capital and high expectations associated with the city’s more prosperous recent past, Pittsfield High retained an astonishing roster of educators, too many to name.
There was surely some luck involved, too. Mr. Gilson had been bound for a different calling: At St. Michael’s College in Vermont, he had been a member of the Edmundite Order, but left it for a master’s degree at Boston College before returning to his hometown of Pittsfield.
As someone who’d already endured countless hours in European churches and castles while visiting my mother’s German family, my openness to his tales was foreordained. But he was barely less captivating to the Pittsfield kids who came to his subject cold. As autumn gave way to the Berkshire winter and then a muddy spring, he carried us through the sweep of several dozen centuries, from ancient Sumeria to the Bay of Pigs.
Such surveys are daunting endeavors and prone to superficiality. But somehow, his style of instruction, combining intellectual passion with riveting performance, enlivened so many important historical figures and episodes that three decades later, their names still hold the charge he first gave them: Savonarola, Zwingli, Bloody Mary; the Defenestration of Prague, the Committee of Public Safety, the Emancipation of the Serfs; the Dreyfus Affair and Zimmerman Telegram, the Beer Hall Putsch and Night of the Long Knives, Yalta and Potsdam. There was art, too: Raphael, Brueghel, Delacroix, Goya …
Nor did he allow “European” to bound us unnecessarily. His unit on colonialism brought us to Cecil Rhodes and Lord Kitchener, to Gandhi and Nehru; World War II took us to Manchuria and Hiroshima, to Mao Tse-tung and Chiang Kai-shek. And this world was delivered with scarcely a glance at a textbook, but rather by Mr. Gilson himself, armed with nothing more than a piece of chalk and the large map hanging at the front of the room. He would gambol about as he told the stories he loved best and then peppered us with questions, as if to check not only the knowledge but the passion he was trying to share. Every so often, he would be struck by the delight of some new name or term or moment and he would move to the chalkboard with exaggerated steps, like a cartoon burglar, to add it to his cursive smorgasbord of the things he was certain we needed to know.
Each year, so many sophomores enjoyed his European history class that some 25 signed up for a repeat performance. In his Advanced Placement European history class, Mr. Gilson’s emphasis shifted to the big themes the AP board would test us on: Enlightenment, revolution, industrialism, nationalism, balance of powers, imperialism, totalitarianism. But to us kids, the class was essentially a chance to hear Mr. Gilson’s greatest hits all over again, and to live a little longer in the world he rendered so colorful and coherent.
My own adulation was unabashed. At the Latin Club’s annual toga banquet (a big deal in a school with a big Latin Club, the legacy of the legendary Janet Rajotte), I staged a group skit of a parody of a Gilson class, with myself in the title role. In college, I loaded up on more European history classes (though today it’s clear that Mr. Gilson’s taught me most of what I remember best). After graduation, I came close to taking a high school history teaching job, before landing at a small newspaper instead. Another student who first fell in love with European history in Mr. Gilson’s classroom returned to teach at Pittsfield High; today, she works for the State Department.
My reporting in the years that followed was exclusively domestic — somehow, my dream of working as a correspondent abroad, where my arsenal of Mr. Gilson’s facts might have been most useful, never came to be. But last fall, I had the chance to do a four-month fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin, and so 30 years after I last sat in the middle row of Mr. Gilson’s classroom, I was suddenly re-immersed in the history he’d introduced to me, as I brought my sons to see the Wannsee Conference villa and the Stasi prison and the gargantuan Soviet War Memorial in Berlin, or visited the even more gargantuan memorial to the allied victory over Napoleon, in Leipzig.
Later, when Russia invaded Ukraine, I found myself returning again to Pittsfield High and 1990 and Chuck Gilson’s retelling of the Kievan Rus, and Peter the Great, and the Great Famine, and I was thankful, amidst this new and horrific European story, for the educational foundation that might help me make sense of it and explain it to my sons.
While I had seen Mr. Gilson several times over the years, and each time made plain to him how much he had meant to us, I did not get to share this latest appreciation before receiving word of his death at age 88, last month. So I will say it now. To Mr. Gilson, the extraordinary teacher, the mad monk: thank you.
- The Berkshire Eagle
LEE — A day of music at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington will celebrate the life of a Lee man, whose talents and friendship captured the hearts of the Berkshire County music community.
The Hearts to Harte Benefit celebrates the life and impact of Jimmy “Hartso” Harte, a drummer, sound engineer and successful business owner whose passing Monday has inspired tributes from across a tight-knit music community.
Harte was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September and friends of the musician had been trying to find a way to host a benefit concert to help cover the cost of Harte’s chemotherapy treatment for months, according to a GoFundMe page set up for Harte.
Plans for the benefit were put on pause last fall over coronavirus concerns.
The GoFundMe drive raised more than $28,000 for Harte’s treatment and family. Updates to the page document how Harte continued to make music even as he fought the aggressive cancer.
Harte played a Halloween show, a month after his diagnosis, with his 1960s tribute ensemble, The Happy Together Band.
Supporters were still hoping to do something musical for the man they described as “always willing to help anyone in need” and “one of the best drummers in Berkshire County.”
Late last month a Facebook event for the benefit was created. A date, venue and lineup were settled on. Artists and friends Brian Benlien, John Zarvis and Pug Demary, Steve Adams, Jack Waldheim, Lady Di and The Dukes agreed to play the event and Harte’s own band, The Happy Together Band, was scheduled to play a set.
Then news broke Monday that Harte had died.
In the wake of his passing, friends flooded to Harte’s social media profile to memorialize a man they knew as “fun-loving,” “brilliant” and “every man’s friend.”
“Jimmy Harte is a human being everyone should know,” one person wrote on Harte’s GoFundMe page.
An update to the benefit’s event page on Monday promised that Saturday’s benefit would go on as planned, serving now as a celebration of Harte’s life and the place he has in a community’s hearts.
“This will be a chance to uphold each other as we mourn the loss of a great friend,” Jacqueline Clapper, who’s helping organize the event, wrote. “We will celebrate his life with stories, music, laughter and tears. Sharing the place in our hearts where Jimmy resides forever.”
Editor’s Note: This story was updated on May 3, 2022.
It was over 21 years ago that Daniel R. Duke was found unconscious on a road in Columbia, S.C.
Duke, a Lenox native, outdoorsman and marine biology student at the University of South Carolina, had suffered a head injury, leaving him with brain damage, local media reported.
Duke died Thursday as a result of the injury he suffered in December 2000, according to his obituary. He was 43 and a resident of Mount Carmel Care Center in Lenox.
What caused his injury remains a mystery.
He had been struck in the head by an object as he tried to cross Pickens Street some time after 3 a.m., according to a report from WLTX, a local CBS television affiliate. His body was found by a passerby.
The station reported that Duke, a graduate of Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington, was leaving a friend’s dorm room en route to his own when the incident occurred. Duke slipped into a coma, and remained in one for at least the next six years.
About a month after the incident, The State newspaper cited a medical expert speculating that Duke may have been struck by the side-view mirror of a passing vehicle. Former Columbia Police Chief Charles Austin told the paper he believed it was possible that a motorist may not have realized he struck Duke.
But there was “no broken glass, no skid marks and no car parts at the scene,” WLTX reported.
Duke’s father expressed doubt about the vehicle theory over a decade ago, saying he would have expected to see “other indications” of a crash involving a pedestrian.
The station quoted Columbia Police Corp. Derek Miller calling the investigation one of the most “puzzling” cases of his career.
“I believe whoever did it knows somebody was hit that night. Whether it be a car or an individual who just happened to pick on our son ... because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Duke’s mother Jessie told WLTX in 2007.
Duke’s family could not immediately be reached by The Eagle for comment. His burial is private.
Duke attended Berkshire Community College before transferring to South Carolina.
Donations may be made in Duke’s memory to the Dan Duke Memorial Scholarship Fund in care of Roche Funeral Home, 120 Main St., Lenox.
Editor’s Note: This story contains strong language and discussion of violence.
CHESHIRE — The day before her youngest child was stabbed to death, Linda Tatro saw what it looked like when her daughter’s husband became enraged.
Luis Rosado leaned forward from a chair on her home’s front porch in Cheshire, and screamed. “If you ever f---ing leave me, I will f---ing kill you,” she said she heard him say to her daughter.
It wasn’t the first time Linda Tatro saw Rosado angry. It would be the last.
The next day, Saturday, May 28, prosecutors say Rosado stabbed and killed Jillian Tatro, 38, at her apartment on Charles Street in North Adams.
In interviews and statements this week, family and friends provided the first full public accounting of Jillian Tatro’s last days and of her brief marriage to a man who she at first believed offered her security. But they allege that Rosado’s violence and drug use quickly shattered that sense of safety. In her last months, Tatro knew she needed to find an escape, friends and family say.
She tried to protect herself, including through the use of a court’s order that lapsed over a month before she died. Her death has left family and friends wondering how this tragedy might have been avoided — and what might have been done through the legal system and the community to save her.
During a two-hour interview this week, Linda Tatro explained that on the Friday before her daughter’s murder, the couple had gotten into a verbal fight. Jillian discovered Rosado, who is 49, was using drugs again. Jillian Tatro told Rosado to get out of the home. When he didn’t, she called the police.
In the presence of officers, Rosario’s belongings were collected and packed into a cab, which he left in, bound for Pittsfield.
In the family’s kitchen at the Cheshire home, sympathy cards sit propped on a table near the door. In the living room, a bouquet of red roses and white carnations sits on a coffee table.
Linda Tatro struggles to understand how it is that the man who used to call her “mama,” and who professed his love for Jillian and her family, stands accused of killing her daughter. Rosado pleaded not guilty June 3 to a single count of murder in Tatro’s death. He was ordered held without bail before trial.
That’s the same man, Linda Tatro says, who used to cook meals in her kitchen and wore a gold rosary around his neck.
Jennifer Tatro thinks her little sister gravitated to Rosado because she felt, in some sense, that Rosado could protect her. In Jillian, she thinks Rosado found someone he thought he could control. “He was very manipulative,” Jennifer Tatro said.
Early signs of violence
Jillian Tatro and Rosado met last fall. Linda Tatro now believes Rosado began to abuse her daughter within a month or two. At a vigil this week, friends said they had seen bruising on her face. In March, Jillian Tatro sought and obtained a protective order against Rosado from Northern Berkshire District Court.
Defense attorney Jeffrey Brown, who is representing Rosado in the murder case the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office brought against him in connection with Tatro’s death, declined to comment for this article.
Jillian Tatro had worked hard to achieve independence, her family members say. As a child, she worked with her mother at a local bingo hall, running food that her mother cooked out to patrons. It was also where she met Kristen McLain, who would become one of her lifelong friends.
There had been discord in her childhood home. Linda Tatro said the man who would become her first husband had threatened to harm her family if they didn’t marry. She thinks Rosado issued a similar threat toward her daughter.
“She was afraid of him. She was intimidated,” Linda Tatro said.
When the couple married without fanfare in January, Jennifer Tatro wonders why her sister, 10 years younger, had decided to enmesh herself with Rosado after working hard to achieve her independence — and turning down proposals in the past. No one from the family was invited to the ceremony, Linda Tatro said, or knew about the wedding until it was over.
Jillian Tatro had prized independence. She become legally emancipated at age 16, her family members say, and became pregnant with her first child. She moved into her own place at Dower Square Apartments in Pittsfield.
McLain had a son around that same time and the two young mothers raised their children in tandem. She said Jillian’s daughter gave her friend new meaning and purpose in life: She “absolutely loved it.”
Jillian Tatro worked as a personal care assistant, the seeds of which family said were sown as early as age 9, when she would help massage her grandfather’s asbestos-damaged lungs, after his shifts at the General Electric Co. in Pittsfield.
She grew into a fashionista and liked stylish clothes and perfumes. She was a social chameleon, Linda Tatro said, and could fit in with nearly anyone. Jillian Tatro loved dogs and horses, and went on to have a second child, a son.
A volatile relationship
The relationship Jillian Tatro formed with her new husband was often volatile, fluctuating from the good — newlyweds cooking dinner in the Cheshire kitchen — to the dangerous, her family says.
When a conflict would erupt between the two at Linda Tatro’s home, Jillian often told her mother to go into her room, her mother said. Jillian Tatro served as Linda’s caregiver, and did everything for her, as Linda uses a walker and has limited mobility. Jillian Tatro split her time between her mother’s house and her own apartment in North Adams.
Jillian was also protective. When asked about signs of abuse in her relationship with Rosado, she would at times respond along the lines of, “I got this,” McLain said.
“She felt like she had to go along with his requests,” said Jennifer Tatro. “In her mind, she was protecting other people, her family.”
McLain said that even when her best friend was physically away from Rosado, he kept close tabs on her. He would call and check up on her repeatedly, behavior McLain described as stalking.
“There’s no other way to put it, he was stalking her,” said Linda Tatro. “Constant intimidation keeps them under their control.”
On March 11, Rosado called state police to Linda Tatro’s Cheshire home and accused Jillian Tatro of hitting him. He admitted to a trooper that he was on probation for domestic violence, and also confirmed that a cut on his face had been sustained from shaving.
The trooper arrested Jillian Tatro nonetheless, according to the trooper’s report, after kicking in the front door of the home. The arrest resulted in a court case against Jillian — the second that police agreed to file against her based on a complaint from her husband. Rosado had a documented history of domestic abuse, and was previously incarcerated in New York for assault.
The Berkshire DA’s office said in 2020 that Rosado pleaded guilty to strangulation and other charges related to the domestic assault of another victim, whom he intimidated in recorded phone calls from jail not to testify against him. He was sentenced to one year in jail.
On March 14, three days after state police arrested her at her mother’s Cheshire home, Jillian Tatro obtained an abuse prevention order in an effort to keep Rosado away from her.
In a sworn affidavit, she said Rosado “lies, terrorizes me and hurts me physically then has me falsely arrested due to him injuring himself.”
She told the court at the time she was petrified and that her marriage was dangerous for her. Rosado was “amazing sober,” she wrote, but had started using drugs heavily just weeks after they married in early January.
At this point, she said he was “very unstable and unpredictable.” She said he had punched her and choked her. Berkshire District Attorney Andrea Harrington said recently that choking is a warning sign of a future domestic violence homicide.
“I am in fear for my life at this point, I don’t know who to turn to anymore,” Tatro wrote in an affidavit. “I have a family to protect, as well as myself.”
The court granted a temporary abuse prevention order, but it expired after Tatro didn’t show up to a subsequent hearing. Her sister Jennifer and mother believe Rosado took Jillian out of town so the couple would miss the hearing. They went on vacation.
Linda Tatro said protections must be strengthened for victims who, for whatever reason, fail to appear for the follow-up hearing after disclosing abuse at the hands of another.
“The law needs to change if they don’t show up ... you go check on that person,” she said. “People have to do something; you can’t just sit back and do nothing.”
A deadly weekend
On Friday, May 27, Jillian had found Rosado was using drugs, once again, family said.
During the argument they had on the final Friday of her life, Jillian Tatro stood on the road outside the home her grandparents built on a rural plot around 1948. A row of trees was to her right, near the old enclosure for her horses, Monty, Ruby and Bella.
For weeks, Tatro had been readying to leave Rosado.
Her mother thinks Jillian must have said something to Rosado about how their relationship was soon to end, because she said Rosado leaned forward in his chair on the front porch, and screamed that threat on her life.
Janis Broderick, executive director of the Elizabeth Freeman Center, said the risk of lethality increases 75 percent when a victim prepares to leave their abuser.
“Domestic violence is not about love. It’s about power and control over someone. So when an abuser fears losing that control, they’re more likely to act impulsively and violently,” she said. “There’s a reason that the phrase, ‘If I can’t have you, no one will,’ is so common.”
Broderick said those looking to leave an abusive relationship should contact the Elizabeth Freeman Center, whose experts can help victims discretely develop a plan to escape an abusive situation, arrange for new lodging and supports, and address other considerations, like what to do when children and pets are involved.
After Rosado threatened her daughter’s life, Linda Tatro told him never to speak to Jillian like that again. Rosado left in a cab with his belongings.
Jillian Tatro had an escape plan, her mother and sister say. She was going to go camping with McLain. She went to her apartment in North Adams to pack.
“She was going to escape, to get some air. Get away from him. So he couldn’t find her,” Jennifer Tatro said.
But before she got the chance to leave town with McLain, Rosado was back. He arrived in a cab at her apartment on Charles Street in North Adams about 2 a.m. the next morning, unwanted and uninvited, according to Jennifer Tatro.
He started making a scene outside her apartment, screaming her name and swearing, according to what Jillian Tatro told her mother on a phone call the next day.
Jennifer Tatro said her sister, at that point, did not have faith in the authorities. Not after she believed state police took his word over hers in past domestic incidents.
She let Rosado inside, perhaps believing she could diffuse the situation on her own, family said. Or perhaps believing that doing so was the only option — and not wanting neighbors to be disturbed in the middle of the night.
“Does she have faith in the police?” Jennifer Tatro asked. “Obviously not. Look what they’ve done to her before.”
“She just thought that if she told him what he wanted to hear, if she would let him in, that he would just be calm,” she said.
Next came the phone call from Jillian Tatro to her mother, around 2 p.m. Saturday. Jillian was whispering, and her mother thinks Rosado may still have been in her apartment. They tried to call back, and there was no response.
Jennifer Tatro said Rosado knew what type of behavior he needed to display to persuade Jillian to let him in.
Prosecutors say Rosado stabbed Jillian multiple times in her Charles Street apartment that Saturday, killing her. She was found near the door to her apartment. Her family believes she had been trying to leave.
He was arrested in Pittsfield five days later.
Late in life, Jillian Tatro had grown more interested in being outdoors — reading maps and identifying birds. She was coming into her own, her sister said this week.
“She didn’t know who she was growing up. She was finding herself,” Jennifer Tatro said.
“She was a little Martha Stewart,” said Linda Tatro. “She loved to learn.”
If you’re experiencing domestic violence, call the Elizabeth Freeman Center’s 24/7 toll-free hotline at (866) 401-2425.
WILLIAMSTOWN — Had he become an actor instead of an academic, John W. Chandler would have been well-suited for a wide variety of roles.
His mild-mannered ways, his gentle sense of humor, his self-deprecating candor and his ability to put others at ease invited this movie buff’s comparison of him to certain memorable characters portrayed by James Stewart, Spencer Tracy and Gary Cooper.
Tempting as they are, the comparisons gradually fade because John Wesley Chandler didn’t seek the spotlight or assume other characters. He was, as my late mother would say, “the genuine article — a real gent.”
On Aug. 5, Professor Chandler, the 12th president of Williams College, died in Lenox, a few weeks shy of his 99th birthday.
He leaves his wife, Joyce Lazarus, four children, five grandchildren and a great-grandchild. His first wife, the former Florence Gordon, predeceased him, as did two brothers.
“Dad never lost his capacity to marvel at the life he was graced with ... and he saw it as grace, reflecting often that the balance of his life was blessed with grace much more than challenged by hardship,” his daughter, Jennifer Chandler of Haydenville, wrote last week.
The son of sharecroppers who raised burley tobacco, he was born in Mars Hill, N.C., in 1923. His father was 52, his mother 25. The tobacco market collapsed in the Great Depression and his father died from pneumonia. His mother cared for John and his brothers until her mental illness forced her to find homes for herself and the boys with a series of relatives. The Depression wore on, however, and the family reluctantly placed the boys in a local Baptist orphanage, Mills Home.
“We who lived at Mills Home were surrounded by cultural and educational influences and opportunities that were far superior to what we had known earlier or had any prospect of experiencing,” Professor Chandler wrote in his memoir. “It was not surprising that the college-going rate among us was higher than that of the general population of the time.”
After graduating from Wake Forest College, he earned a Ph.D. in the philosophy of religion from Duke University, then taught philosophy at Wake Forest before joining the Williams faculty in 1955. As a professor and department chair, he established the college’s religion major and served as acting provost and dean of the faculty under President John E. Sawyer. He left Williams in 1968 to become president of Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., where he remained for five years.
He was named president of Williams in 1973 and served for 12 years before accepting an appointment as president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities. A Fulbright scholar, he was the author of two books and the recipient of 16 honorary degrees.
Busy as he was, Professor Chandler “was a terrific and an incredible parent,” Jennifer Chandler recalls. “He never allowed the fatigue or challenges of the times to cause him to snap at us,” she wrote. “I cannot remember a time when we looked at one another to ask, ‘What’s up with Dad?’’’
John W. Chandler Jr., of Longmeadow, recalled his father’s occasional personification of the absent-minded professor. His “signature phrase,” employed when he realized he’d made a mistake, was “Oh my!”
“Dad made three trips down to the House of Walsh on Spring Street to select, get tailored, and bring home a new suit,” his son remembers. “When he went to hang it in his closet at the president’s house, I heard him say it. I found him staring at his new suit hanging next to an identical suit that he had previously purchased. ‘Oh my!’”
Traveling to an academic conference in Virginia, Professor Chandler was “frustrated to discover that the airline, rental car company and hotel each failed to show his reservation in their systems, forcing him to purchase everything at the counter,” his son recalled. “It wasn’t until he got to the empty conference center that he realized he’d left a day early for his trip. ‘Oh my!’”
My late father, who succeeded Professor Chandler as dean of the faculty at Williams, enjoyed relating his friend’s observation upon learning that my dad had arranged for burial plots in the college cemetery, which is situated on high ground near the tennis courts.
“I can’t imagine spending eternity watching bad tennis,” he said.
Oh my.
- By James Harris
GREAT BARRINGTON — Can you imagine life in the Berkshires without the ever effervescent Hilda Banks Shapiro? Me neither.
But she left us on Aug. 17 and bicycled off in her red Converse high-tops to join Schubert and Brahms instead. She’ll also be on the special lookout for FDR, Mother Teresa and Clark Gable.
An irrepressibly positive personality who beamed goodwill to all, even Republicans, Hilda had her fingers in many pies when they weren’t on the keyboard, from the Egremont Garden Club to the Mason Library, the Sheffield Kiwanis to the Great Barrington Tree Committee — she loved trees above all things, even dogs. She established scholarships at Monument Mountain Regional High School in memory of her sons Mitchell and Samuel (nine of her children graduated from Monument), and another at Berkshire School in memory of Terry Pines, with whom Hilda co-founded Barrington Performing Arts Inc.
At the piano keyboard, Hilda was everywhere: At Berkshire Music School, where she taught from 1970 to 2004 and was a founding member of the Linden Trio; helping organize the Octoberzest music and March Hare dance festivals at Simon’s Rock College, where she accompanied student singers in their recitals; and playing the piano at countless musicals at Monument Mountain and Mount Everett high schools and at Berkshire School.
Born in Boston on Dec. 19, 1926, and raised in nearby Dorchester and Brookline, Hilda attended local schools until fourth grade and then was tutored while she studied piano, first with Leonard Shure, a former child prodigy, and then the famed — and intimidating — Arthur Schnabel, whose other students included Leon Fleisher, who was two years Hilda’s junior.
In 1942, at age 15, Hilda was awarded a fellowship at the Berkshire Music Center, now Tanglewood. That summer, she twice played Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, accompanied by the Berkshire Music Center Orchestra under the batons of Frederick Fennell and the young Lucas Foss.
The next year, Hilda made her professional solo debut at Jordan Hall in her native Boston and, in 1946, one month shy of her 20th birthday, she made her solo debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City — a concert she reenacted 50 years later at the Berkshire Music School. Then it was off to Europe, where, with Schuman, Brahms and Chopin on the menu, Hilda played to great acclaim in London, Paris, Amsterdam and The Hague.
A promising career beckoned. But our Hilda had other plans.
‘Cheaper by the Dozen’
At 13, she had read the novel “Cheaper by the Dozen” and announced to her parents that she would someday have 12 children. Enter Leonard Shapiro, a jeweler and refugee from the Free City of Danzig who also loved music. (Shapiro was a gold and platinum caster whose work would later be commissioned by the Vatican.) The couple married in 1948 and eventually moved to Litchfield, Conn., with Leonard working in New York City during the week.
In time, Hilda had her dozen — Andre, Mark, Mitchell, Serena, Jonathan, Jason, Kari, Claudia, Samuel, David, Miriam and Stephanie — all born at Danbury Hospital in a span of 19 years via the same general practitioner.
In 1972, the family bought Broadmeadow, a 130-acre dairy farm in Great Barrington, along with 50 Holsteins for milk and a Jersey named Bathsheba for butter. Sounded like fun to Hilda, and for the next three years the woman who had been the toast of Europe was up at dawn squeezing udders on behalf of the HP Hood company.
Exit Leonard Shapiro, all of a sudden. Hilda — left with 10 children, little money and no car — made do, starting with babysitting at $1 an hour per child. She then formed a quartet, A Taste of Honey (with kids David, Miriam and Stephanie), that played at weddings and other occasions. Soon, Hilda was playing the piano all over the Berkshires, and hitchhiking, often with children in tow, to get to her gigs.
Thanks to Harold
And to think none of it may never have happened without Harold.
Who is Harold, you ask? Jan Hutchinson of South Egremont tells the story in the liner notes for the only CD Hilda ever made — at age 89:
“Hilda’s lifelong love of music began underneath her family’s piano, where she lay listening to her brother trying to master ‘The Waltz of the Flowers.’ One day from the kitchen, her mother finally heard a lovely rendition of the waltz and yelled out, ‘Now you’ve got it, Harold!’
“‘But mother!’ he yelled back. ‘It’s not me playing, it’s Hilda!’ Hilda was 4 years old.”
In the last year of her life, Hilda broke a hip and then, in her fashion, conquered the effects of two strokes until her huge heart finally gave it all up one morning in August. Little surprise that hours later, after days and days of drought, it rained on her garden on Broadmeadow Farm, not far from Mitchell’s white pickup.
Farewell, lovey (or, if you prefer, poopsie), with love and gratitude from all of us.
- The Berkshire Eagle
FLORIDA — The motorcyclist who died after losing control of his bike Saturday night on River Road in Florida has been identified as Kyle Richard Pellerin, 44, of Drury, according to an obituary released by Flynn & Dagnoli Funeral Home.
Massachusetts State Police say that at around 8:11 p.m., troopers from the Cheshire Barracks responded to the crash. A preliminary investigation showed that Pellerin was driving a 2007 Harley Davidson motorcycle on River Road.
"For reasons still under investigation the operator lost control and crashed the motorcycle," state police said in a news release. "No other vehicle was involved."
Pellerin was transported to the Berkshire Medical Center facility in North Adams where he was declared dead.
The crash remains under investigation. The Florida Fire Department and Northern Berkshire EMS assisted with the crash scene.
According to the obituary, Pellerin was born in North Adams on Sept. 6, 1978, to Richard William Pellerin and the late Judith Ann (Nichols) Pellerin.
He was a graduate of McCann High School's electricity program and was employed by the city of Pittsfield as an electrician for many years.
A Christian Burial for Pellerin will start at 11 a.m. Friday at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church. Burial will follow in Southview Cemetery. Calling hours are Thursday from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Flynn & Dagnoli West Chapel at 521 West Main St. in North Adams.
NORTH ADAMS — Several balloons were tied to the side of Doris Cote’s Church Street home. “Hugs & prayers,” one read. The message “I love you” adorned two others.
Neighbors remember Cote as a sweet and friendly person. The news of her death shocked the quiet neighborhood.
A police car outside of the home recently was an odd sight, neighbor John Lord said. He grew up in the neighborhood and now lives down the street, and he had never seen a police car outside her house before.
Doris took frequent walks in her neighborhood and would always stop to say hello, said Lord and his girlfriend Dorothea Haskins. She had a “cheery way about her,” Haskins said. Everyone in the neighborhood knew her, Lord said.
“It was a pleasure knowing someone as sweet as Doris,” Haskins said. “Our hearts go out to the family. … It’s a horrible tragedy.”
Cote’s granddaughter, Kelsie Cote, 26, pleaded not guilty on Monday to multiple charges in connection with Cote’s death.
Neighbors were surprised to learn of Kelsie Cote’s arrest in the case.
“It almost seems there’s no way she’s done that,” said Brianna Lord, John Lord’s daughter who went to school with Kelsie Cote and described her as “tiny, sweet, harmless.”
“It doesn’t match up to the person we know,” Haskins said.
Graziana Ramsden has been Doris Cote’s neighbor for about 20 years.
“I was very much taken aback by the news of her death,” Ramsden said on Monday.
Like Haskins and the Lords, she also remembers seeing Doris Cote taking walks in the neighborhood, often with her husband, Ray, before he died early this year.
“She was always very kind, very jovial. Always in a good mood, both of them,” Ramsden said. “We will remember her as someone who was truly a wonderful neighbor.”
Ramsden, originally from Italy and a language professor at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, learned about the community through Cote.
“She would tell me some North Adams local history from a personal point of view of her own. That’s fun,” Ramsden said. “I think that it’s always interesting to hear local stories by people who have lived them — it gives you a completely different perspective as an outsider.”
The last time I talked to Jake Hescock was in the weeks after his college football career at the University of Central Florida came to a successful close when the Knights beat the University of Florida in the 2021 Gasparilla Bowl.
He had so much to look forward to.
“I’ve lived in Madison, Wisc. I’ve lived in Orlando, Fla. I’ve been in Salisbury, Conn., Pittsfield, Mass. I’ve met hundreds and hundreds of extremely successful people, some of the people I call my best friends, people that are going to be at my wedding,” Hescock said. “I’ve already gone to weddings with some of my best friends for life.
“All these experiences have prepared me for the real world and for what’s next.”
It is sad that Jake Hescock never got to use those experiences in the real world. Hescock, 25, died Sunday. He had been out for a jog in Boston, where he had moved to take a job in medical equipment sales, when he was stricken.
The last time we spoke for an interview, he was at a high school basketball game at Wahconah High School. I jokingly said “Step into my office” for a chat.
When we spoke that night, he said he was ready to close the book on football and begin the next chapter.
“It’s been a 17-year journey. It’s still hitting me every day,” Hescock said. “It gets a little more real, but I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity I’ve had and the journey I took.
“I couldn’t be happier with the way things ended.”
Hescock wrapped up his college career on Dec. 23, 2021, when his UCF football team beat the University of Florida 29-17 in the Union Home Mortgage Gasperilla Bowl, played in Tampa. The Knights ended the season with a 9-4 record and a signature win over the traditional state power and SEC member, Gators.
In four seasons at Central Florida, Hescock played on teams that went 37-12, won the American Athletic Conference championship in 2018, and went 2-2 in bowl games. Coincidentally, both wins were at the Gasparilla Bowl. The first one came in 2019, when the Knights beat Marshall in what was then the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl game.
Beating Florida wasn’t like winning a national title or playing in the BCS Tournament. Believe me when I say this, it was as good a way for Jake Hescock’s college football career to end as any.
“It was the state championship of Florida,” he told me in Dalton. “We got to come out victorious and beat the SEC Gators. I was happy for our fans. They got the bragging rights until 2023.”
The first time Jake and I spoke for a story was in February, 2016, when I traveled to Salisbury School in Connecticut for Salisbury’s signing day ceremony. That day, Hescock inked a National Letter of Intent with the University of Wisconsin.
“It’s a special day. It’s a lot of hard work that has finally paid off. It’s a lot of sweat and tears and grinding out on a football field,” Hescock said that day. “Now I finally get to see some payment for it. It’s also a special day for my family.”
Four months later, I ran into Hescock at Wahconah Park, just before he was pulling out of Pittsfield for Madison, the first stop on his college journey.
“I’m extremely excited,” Hescock told me just before he left for the Midwest. “I’ve been waiting for this for a year now.
“I’ve gotten the chance to be a celebrity in town,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve had a chance to do all that. It’s a humbling moment. I’m going to go and finally compete and see what it’s all like.”
Over the course of his college career, Hescock had a lot to deal with. Transferring from a Big Ten school to an American Athletic Conference school, and then going through a bunch of coaching staffs. But when we talked, even once on zoom call with reporters in Orlando, he seemed to take things in stride.
It was Paul Chryst at Wisconsin and then three coaches at UCF.
Transferring to Central Florida, his first season was under Scott Frost, who then left for Nebraska. Heupel, a former University of Oklahoma quarterback, then took over before joining former Central Florida athletic director Danny White at Tennessee. Finally, when Heupel left for Tennessee, Gus Malzahn came to UCF.
“I think it really started even when Heupel left,” said Hescock, who was asked about the buy-in for Malzahn and the new staff. “Instead of everybody going their own way, everybody bought into each other. That was one of the biggest things. We didn’t even have a head coach. That was one of the biggest periods for us because we got a chance to bond and buy into each other. No matter what coach came into the building, we were going to be ready to work once spring started.”
His death leaves a void for his family, his friends, his former coaches and teammates.
May his memory truly be a blessing.