Dorothy C. Reed, 75, Fostered Creative Family

The family of Dorothy C. Reed, who died at home on Nov. 11, 2006 will hold a memorial service at the family burial plot in the West Tisbury cemetery at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 16.

The Rev. Terry Newberry will conduct the service. A reception at the Up-Island Council on Aging in West Tisbury will follow. Family members and friends are invited to attend both the memorial service and the reception.

Dorothy J. Curran was born in Atlanta, Ga. on Feb. 26, 1931. She grew up in Hartford, Conn., and Longmeadow. She attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she met and eventually married a student from West Tisbury named Jack Reed, a marriage which lasted 53 years until her death at age 75.

Dorothy and Jack were blessed with two sons, David and Ted. She devoted her life to being a superlative wife, mother, and homemaker, while remaining the closest friend of her sister, Barbara Curran.

Jack and Dorothy's professional career required several major moves, including Rocky Mount, N.C.; Wilmette, Ill.; Westport, Conn.; Decatur, Ill.; London, United Kingdom; and finally Washington, D.C.

Throughout these relocations, the family remained closely knit, so close that the remainder of this obituary is based mostly upon vignettes provided by family members.

One of the important qualities defining Dorothy was her intellectual curiosity. From childhood throughout her adult life, she was a voracious reader of both history and current events. In recent years, she read the New York Times and Washington Post every day. She followed government activities at the national and local level, the political processes, the various participants in the process, and what determined the eventual political outcomes. She even faxed the Washington Post's daily political cartoons to her sister in Chicago.

Dorothy was intrigued by the world around her. She was a perceptive observer. She frequently awarded priority to a new and different phenomenon or development, and other objectives were relegated to second place. This process sometimes appeared to be procrastination or daydreaming, when in fact it was Dorothy marching to a different drummer.

Even as a child, Dorothy usually held strong opinions which she felt compelled to share with others, and to convince them if possible. Like her father, she loved to debate. Many an evening at the close of dinner her father would encourage the start of a debate at the dinner table. There was no rancor in these proceedings. Often a participant was expected to defend a proposition that he or she supported only for the purposes of the debate. Dorothy's adult abilities as a formidable opponent in any debate or argument were initially developed in these family dinner table debates.

Classical music, especially opera, played a major role in Dorothy's life. Starting early in married life, she gradually acquired an impressive inventory of top quality operatic records, tapes, compact discs and digital video discs. She always tried to listen to the Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera. With much patience, she gradually converted husband Jack into a lover of many operas. Over the years, she and Barbara managed to attend Wagner's Ring Cycle seven times in four different cities: Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, and New York. In addition, she and Jack attended leading performances of many other operas in Chicago, Hamburg, London, and Washington.

Although she lacked a formal art education, Dorothy also was a gifted artist. While in college, she created freehand pencil portraits of movie and sports stars with astonishing accuracy and emotive power. She brought creativity into every corner of family life. She loved art history, collected art books, and took her sons to the Art Institute in Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York city. When her son Ted was a teenager and wanted to take adult art classes, she joined with him and finally obtained professional instruction for herself. The strength of her artistic gift amazed the instructors.

Mrs. Reed never acknowledged the extent to which she fostered creativity in others, but those whose lives she touched and inspired will never forget. Her son David, in addition to practicing law, is also a builder who refurbishes homes and builds furniture, with a profound love for creating with his hands. Her son Ted had to give up practicing law because of a physical disability and has become an international award-winning professional artist, and an Art League instructor of portrait, still-life and figure painting.

For many years of her life, Dorothy made her sons' education one of her most important goals. As they grew and matured, she always made academic achievement important, but she led more with the carrot than the stick. She particularly loved literature and poetry, spending countless hours reading Shakespeare's plays aloud. Both sons learned the virtues of hard work and individual achievement, and both ultimately blossomed academically, with David graduating from Clark University and Emory Law School, and Ted graduating from Bowdoin College and Harvard Law School.

Dorothy was a great mother, artist and chef. She was the mother you would pick if you could pick anyone. Her house was the house that the neighborhood kids came to, played at, slept at, and learned at. She struck the right balance between freedom and safety, between learning and play, between virtue and fun. She sparked and nurtured a creativity that continues to be a vital part of her family even without her. She was an artist on canvas and in the kitchen. Most families brag that that Mom can cook, but this mom could really cook. Many of her recipes continue to be used throughout the family. Her love of opera included being an avid student of each opera's plot, history, and performances, knowledge which she greatly enjoyed sharing with others.

Dorothy died as she lived, with amazing grace and dignity, and will be remembered long and well by all who knew her.

Survivors include her husband, Jack Reed of Washington, D.C. and West Tisbury; a sister, Barbara Curran of Chicago, Ill.; two sons, David Reed of Alpharetta, Ga., and Ted Reed of Vienna, Va.; daughters in law Deborah Reed of Alpharetta and Susan Lennon of Vienna; and granddaughters Stephanie Reed, Meghan Reed, Charlotte Reed and Catherine Reed.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent to the Hospice of Martha's Vineyard in Oak Bluffs.