LAURA CHASIN

1936 - 2015

Chasin, Laura Of Cambridge, on November 17, born October 11, 1936 in New York, NY. Beloved wife since 1971 of Richard Chasin of Cambridge; mother of Peter Gill Case of Providence, RI, Matthew Case of Chapel Hill, NC, and Jessica Case of Cody, WY; stepmother of Dana Chasin of Washington, DC and Alexandra Chasin of Brooklyn, NY; and grandmother of eleven. She is also survived by her siblings Lucy Waletzky of Bedford, NY, Marion Weber of Bolinas, CA, and Larry Rockefeller of New York, NY. Laura Chasin grew up in Manhattan and attended Bryn Mawr College where she received a B.A. in History of Art. She earned an M.A. in Government from Harvard and an M.S.W. from Simmons College. Chasin served on numerous Boards including the James Jackson Putnam Children's Center of Roxbury, the Conflict Management Group, the Institute for Faith and Politics, the Children's Defense Fund, the Rockefeller Family Fund, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. She was a Life Trustee of Spelman College of Atlanta, GA. In 1989, she founded the Public Conversations Project of Watertown, MA, a non-profit organization promoting constructive dialogue on issues involving clashing values, world views, and identities, such as abortion, sexual orientation, immigration, gun safety, and religious tolerance. The Project teaches extensively and has worked on dozens of issues on four continents. The Project has been given awards by the New York State Mediators Association, the American Association of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama, the American Family Therapy Association, and the American Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to publicconversations.org. The family will announce memorial services in the near future.