Deceased December 9, 2020
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In Memory
After a long and fruitful life, Don passed away at 92 on Dec. 9, 2020, at his home in Williston, Vt. Following college, he went to Tufts University School of Medicine before starting his internship at Maine General Hospital in 1953. In June of 1952, he married his first wife, Alice King, of Bloomfield, Conn., and they had four children during 26 years together. After her death, he married his longtime office nurse, Ida DeGoosh, a union lasting 36 years.
Don’s early medical training was interrupted for military service, and he served two years in the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps. He then started his general practice in Billerica, Mass. (1957–64) before moving to Vermont, specializing in obstetrics, gynecology and pediatrics, delivering many babies in Lamoille County. He was an attending physician at Copley Hospital in Morrisville from 1964 to 1986, when he retired.
Don had a passion for genealogy, spent hours researching family lines and wrote three editions of a book titled The Connecticut Barbers, about descendants of a Thomas Barber who lived in Windsor, Conn., in 1635. A multitalented scholar, Don will be remembered for his love of music, studying and playing the violin for almost 50 years in the Portland (Maine) Symphony and the Vermont Philharmonic Orchestra. He played in various string quartets as well as the Cheshire (Conn.) Symphony Orchestra.
Sadly, he was predeceased by his first wife, his second wife, a son and his sister, being survived by only a brother in Florida. As Don said at our 50th reunion, “I hope to have a good many years left, because I like what I am doing with these years.” Fortunately for his community, he did. A life in full.
Gerry Reilly ’49