Cecelia Marie "Cece" Scott

2017 - 2017

FLORENCE –  Cecelia Marie "Cece" (Frack) Scott died Thursday, May 25, 2017, of ovarian cancer at her home in Florence, She was 78.

Born March 25, 1939, in Easton, Pennsylvania, she is the daughter of the late Edna Raffetto Frack and the late William Frack. Cece is survived by her wife Astrid Lindstrom of Florence; Cece's daughter Heather Scott of Eugene, Oregon; her son Jeffrey Scott and his wife Sharon Yates of Hoboken, New Jersey; step-daughter Anna Leavitt of Arvada, Colorado; step-son Benjamin Leavitt and his wife Jacquelyn Murphy of Aurora, Colorado; brother William Frack, Jr., of Key Largo, Florida; nephew William Frack, III, of Los Angeles, California; niece Lisa Frack of Portland, Oregon; and grandchildren Tiernan, Abigail, Laura, and Zoe.

Cece was educated at Saint Mary's School in Peekskill, New York; at Mount Holyoke College, where she earned a bachelors degree in religion; at Yale University, where she earned a master of arts in divinity; and at Smith College, where she earned a masters in social work. When at Yale, she did field work in local churches and at a neighborhood center for preteen girls from public housing. At age 24, she moved to Washington, D.C., to work as an assistant minister in a small church. She participated in the march on Washington in 1963, which solidified her commitment to social and political activism. Frustrated by the church's limited expectations of her as a woman, she left the ministry after two years and joined the federal government in the war on poverty. For the next seven years, she worked for the Community Action Program. Cece married Stuart Scott and began her family during this time.

In 1976, Cece began four years of work with the Environmental Protection Agency, and in 1981 she was hired to manage the Federal Women's Program at the Environmental Protection Agency. Here she assumed responsibility for the agency's Affirmative Action Program. In the midst of her work to empower women, Cece came out as a lesbian and then went to Smith College to prepare for her third career. She wrote in an essay for her application to the Smith School of Social Work that her life was "a journey of coming out by going in." Soon she was facilitating support groups for women in heterosexual marriages coming out as lesbians.

Cece's third career officially began as a psychotherapist at the Carson Center in Westfield. It was when Cece was working at the Carson Center that she met and fell in love with her wife Astrid, then from Natick. They were married in Abbey Chapel at Mount Holyoke College in 2009. When Cece resigned from the Carson Center, she established a private practice in Northampton and in West Springfield as a psychotherapist. During her marriage to Astrid, Cece sang in the Hampshire Choral Society, helped organize alumnae reunions at Mount Holyoke College, baked cookies for grandchildren, and took dog walks in the woods every weekend.

Visitation for Cece will be Tuesday, May 30, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Ahearn Funeral Home, 783 Bridge Road, Northampton. Her memorial service will be Sunday, June 25, at 2 p.m. at Abbey Chapel at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, with a reception to follow in the Morrison Room at the Willits-Hallowell Conference Center. Parking will be available at the Village Commons.

Cece has asked that family, friends, and colleagues celebrate her life by wearing bright colors, especially purple. Cece's wife, children, grandchildren, and niece will scatter her ashes in June in Cece and Astrid's favorite vacation spot, Ogunquit, Maine.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Cancer Connection, VNA Hospice of Cooley Dickinson, Hampshire Choral Society, and Mount Holyoke College.

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