Deborah Carpenter "Dee Dee" Niswonger

Deborah "Dee Dee" Carpenter Niswonger

Williamsburg, MA - Dee Dee Niswonger died April 10, 2025, at home with her family.

Born to Olive Kimball Carpenter and Norman Carpenter in New York City, Dee Dee grew up in Dobbs Ferry, NY. She spent childhood summers on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, where she learned to canoe, swim and sail. She felt at home in this community, helping to cook for hundreds of fellow campers, and hiking many of the White Mountains' 4000 foot peaks with "Uncle Charlie" on trails he had helped cut in the early 1900s. Dee Dee said as a child she lived for the summer at "camp"; when she and Gary were looking for a place to settle, she wanted it to be a place in which she would long to be all year round.

Dee Dee attended Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio, where she studied English Literature and further developed her lifelong passion for reading and writing. She was introduced to Gary through a mutual friend. They married in the fall of 1963 in Oxford.

She and Gary lived in a variety of communities in Ohio until 1969, when they moved east for Gary to attend the Rhode Island School of Design. In Providence, RI, Dee Dee worked as a reference librarian at the John Hay Library at Brown University. She catalogued the papers of H.P. Lovecraft, a story she loved to tell due to the author's incongruence with her own life.

Dee Dee and Gary moved to the Pioneer Valley in 1972 when Gary began teaching at Smith College, and 1974 they moved to Williamsburg. There Dee Dee found and built the home she wanted to be in all year round. Dee Dee raised their three children, learned to grow a garden, make bread and yogurt, and preserve everything in sight. When her children were young, her root cellar was filled with jars of produce from the garden. As her children grew, her garden transformed and her basement was more likely home to amaryllis, dahlias and a wide array of gardening tools.

Dee Dee built a home; she also joined and built communities. From the 1970s until their deaths, she and Gary were deeply involved with Grace Church in Amherst, including the Grace in Haiti project. In 1981 Dee Dee joined the Hampshire Regional School Committee, serving as chair from 1987 to 1996. In 1993 she founded the Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools which she ran until retirement in 2008, earning a Lifetime Membership in Massachusetts Association of School Committees for her service. Her neighbors in Williamsburg were incredibly important to her. She and Gary would host garden parties and ice cream socials. That community was a source of great comfort and support as she and Gary aged, after Gary died, and as she gradually weakened due to lymphoma.

Dee Dee was a storyteller. She wrote novels, short stories, observations of life and her garden. She was curious and inspired curiosity. During her last year, she and one of her caregivers spent hours studying and discussing medieval manuscripts, which gave DeeDee tremendous pleasure.

Dee Dee was a quilter and over her life made a series of exquisite quilts, often by hand. In retirement, she and Gary explored France, England, Italy, Canada, and the western United States. While Gary painted, Dee Dee would write or sew. She made a quilt for each of her grandchildren, completing three of them in her final year. She was relieved when her children helped her finish her final quilt in the last week of her life.

Dee Dee and Gary were married for over 60 years. She leaves behind three children, their spouses and five grandchildren, a sister, a sister-in-law, a nephew, two grand nephews and a grand niece.

She will be deeply missed.

A service in celebration of Dee Dee's life will be held Saturday, July 5 at 11:00 am at Grace Episcopal Church, 14 Boltwood Avenue, Amherst.

In lieu of flowers, donations in Dee Dee's memory may be made to either WAMC (wamc.org), which kept her company in these last months, or to The Trustees for Re-wilding Beaver Brook (thetrustees.org/rewild-beaver-brook) in Williamsburg, MA.

Please go to Czelusniakfuneralhome.com for online condolences and tribute book.