Dawn Ide Ansty

Dawn (Frear) Ide Ansty died on August 27, 2025 at home in Dedham, MA, surrounded by family and friends after a courageous three-year battle with bladder cancer. She was 90 years old.

Born on June 7, 1935, in Troy, NY, Dawn was the second child of Harlow Chittenden Ide and Edna Frear Ide. She attended The MacDuffie School and graduated from Vassar College in 1958. Dawn then married Charles Augustus Austin III from Elmira, NY, raising five children in Medfield, MA, before their divorce in 1975.

Now a single mom, Dawn was not content to sit still. She took Continuing Ed classes, was accepted into Boston College Law School, and received her J.D. in 1984. The next year she married Edward (Dig) Ansty and settled in Dedham, MA. Dawn practiced family law and mediation for 24 years and, in 2009, helped form Family Law Collaborative Solutions LLC.

Upon her retirement, Dawn would not slow down. She often joked she was like a shark that kept moving or else it would die. Soon after a hip replacement, she was stacking firewood and removing carpet remnants from her new home to the consternation of her family!

A member of The Chickering Foundation and a former member of Dedham Square Circle, Dawn loved opera, classical music, and sang alto for many years in the Dedham Choral Society. She was a perpetual student and voracious reader, often auditing classes at Wellesley College with her dear friend, Tom Viti. She was also an accomplished gardener and member of the Noanett Garden Club.

Dawn was an inspiration and role model for all who knew and loved her. A friend of her son recalls her "point blank ability to say anything that was on her mind, unlike most 1970's moms." A lifelong believer in the "muddle through" philosophy, Dawn experienced the loss of two of her five children, her second son Curtis Young Austin in 1975 and her youngest child, Alice Sabin Austin in 2017. She was also preceded in death by her husband, Dig Ansty, in 1992.

Dawn leaves behind her siblings Jayne Ide Gill of Longmeadow, MA, Harlow Chittenden "Chip" Ide Jr. of Willimantic, CT, and Linda Ide Punderson of Middlebury, VT; her children, Charles Augustus Austin IV (Elinor) of Los Angeles, CA, Samantha Ide Austin Young (David) of Haverhill, MA, Frederick Augustus Austin (Stacy) of Portland, OR, and three stepchildren, Charley Ansty of Canton, MA, Martha Ansty (Bill) of Stowe, VT, and Hugh S. Ansty (Rose Ann) of New York, NY and Chicago, IL, in addition to three grandchildren, Emma Louise Young, Augusta, and Fisher Drisko, and five stepgrandchildren: Ludy, Fitzhugh, Luke, Ted, and Eli Ansty, and numerous nieces and nephews.

A memorial service will be held on Monday, September 15, 2025 at 2:00pm at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Dedham, MA.

Donations in Dawn's memory can be made to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.