JOAN D. FULLER

1928 - 2018

FULLER, Joan D. Lawyer, Mentor, Grandma Joan D. Fuller, died peacefully on Thursday August 2, 2018 in Middlebury, VT at the age of eighty-nine. She was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts on November 6, 1928 to Thomas G. Dignan, the utility executive, and Hester Sharkey Dignan, a writer and homemaker. The eldest of six, Joan took to supervision and persuasion early and enthusiastically. Friends recall animated family dinner-time debates about current events. Her passion for logic, argument and social discourse foreshadowed her trailblazing legal career. Joan was an ardent student, first at the West Ward School, a one-room schoolhouse in Wakefield, and later at Wakefield High School and Radcliffe College. In 1951 she entered Harvard Law School as a member of the second class to enroll women. The following year she married and in 1954 she passed the Massachusetts bar while pregnant with her first child, Hester. She performed legal work for the town of Wenham, Massachusetts, and welcomed a son, Brad. In 1962, when they had reached school age, she joined the probate department at the law firm of Ropes & Gray, the first woman with young children ever hired by the firm. There she met and fell in love with Alfred W. Fuller, whom she married in June, 1969. From the early days of their relationship until Alfred's death in 2011, they made an able and energetic "committee of two." They loved the law and their life together in Boston and Vermont, and they were absolutely crackers about each other. In 1973, Joan became the first woman partner at Ropes & Gray. She was almost as proud of this accomplishment as her husband was. "Pretty d*mned good for a girl," Alfred would say with a huge and affectionate smile. Until she left the practice of law at the end of 1993, she made a point of taking every woman who followed her as partner out for a celebratory lunch. Throughout her life, Joan encouraged and celebrated the academic and professional aspirations and accomplishments of younger people, especially younger women. Joan and Alfred loved the people and the rural beauty of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. Retiring in 1993 to their farm in Craftsbury, Vermont, they built a herd of Jersey cows, rode all over their land on their horses Vinny and Big Foot, and established a mail order maple syrup business, winning many blue ribbons at the fairs and the Vermont Farm Show. Joan was also a dedicated volunteer in many local community organizations. Joan was also a devoted grandmother. Every year the kids looked forward to weeks at "Camp Fuller" where summer days of swimming, soccer camp and tractor rides also included an hour of reading. She had a great flair for celebration; good marks and other accomplishments were met with Grand Finales, root beer floats and trips to the 64-flavor creemee stand nearby. Under her tutelage, tough homework and overwhelming reports became puzzles and projects to be tackled with vigor and joy. Most of all, she was an exceptionally patient and openhearted grandmother, taking great interest in talking through everyday difficulties and gently questioning to bring about understanding and a path forward. Though she often noted that it was her professional responsibility as a lawyer to worry about everything, deep down she was an optimist who had faith that others could figure things out and accomplish whatever they set their minds to and worked hard at. Joan always felt her life had been deeply blessed and she sought to spread her good fortune far and wide. She made homes for two of her sisters as age and illness took their toll; she joyfully put children and grandchildren through school and she was forever on alert for opportunities to intercede at a personal level wherever she felt her talents and resources could improve a situation. Joan is survived by her daughter, Hester L. Fuller of Craftsbury, Vermont; her sister Beth McGinty of Duxbury, Massachusetts; her brother Thomas Dignan of Chatham, Massachusetts and Bonita Springs, Florida; her daughter in law Dr. Eileen Doherty-Fuller of Addison, Vermont; her grandchildren Adelaide Fuller and Patrick Fuller of Brooklyn, New York, and Dr. Erin Fuller of Providence, Rhode Island; her step children Tim, Sarah, Jon and Rebecca Fuller and Jane C. Haynes, and their children and grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews. Joan was predeceased by her husband, Alfred W. Fuller, her son, Dr. Bradbury Fuller and her sisters Hester Curtis, Marian Drury and Ellen Dignan. The family expresses deep thanks to the wonderful caregivers who so greatly eased the difficult final years of Joan's remarkable life, both at home in Craftsbury, Vermont and later at the Eastview memory care residence in Middlebury, Vermont where she has lived since 2014. In lieu of flowers please consider sending a donation to the Eastview Employees Fund (100 Eastview Terrace, Middlebury, Vermont 05753) or Addison County Home Health & Hospice, Inc. (PO Box 754, Middlebury, Vermont 05753). Friends are invited to join the family for a celebration of her life on Saturday, September 8 from 4 to 6 PM at the Ritz-Carlton on Avery Street in Boston. A funeral mass will be offered in Vermont later in the Fall.

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