Rita Beatrice (Couto) Petrella

Dr. Rita Beatrice (Couto) Petrella of San Diego, California, passed away peacefully on November 4 at the age of 85, surrounded by the love of her family. Born and raised in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Rita was the only daughter of Anthony (who emigrated from the Azores) and Beatrice (Silva) and grew up under the influence of a loving extended family.

At 16, Rita graduated with Great Distinction from Lawrence High School. She was a first-generation graduate of Merrimack College, which she attended on scholarship as one of very few women studying biology and chemistry. She worked as a Medical Technologist at Beverly Hospital then as a Senior Biochemist at the VA Hospital in White River Junction, Vermont, before marrying Anthony Petrella and raising a family in Andover, Massachusetts, a hometown she loved and served for decades. While working from home until all four of their children were old enough to be in school all day, Rita earned her teaching credential and developed curriculum as lead teacher of Catechism and chairperson of the religious education committee for St. Augustine Parish in Andover. There she met the Principal of East Junior High, who would eventually hire Rita to her first job teaching science at East, a place where colleagues became the greatest of friends. She went on to teach biology, chemistry, and physics at Andover High School, eventually serving as Science Department Chair. All the while, Rita attended graduate school at night, beginning at Merrimack, and continuing with science and education courses at Northeastern University (Phi Sigma), UMass Lowell, and Boston College, where an academic advisor reviewed her assorted transcripts and realized Rita was beyond a master's degree and closer to earning her Ph.D. in science curriculum and instruction. Rita defended her dissertation at BC in spring of 1986, a Hail Mary of her very own, and held onto her BC football tickets for years after graduating with Doug Flutie, long enough to bring her own grandchildren to cheer on the Eagles from her coveted 50-yard-line perch. She took to tailgating and excelled in that course as well, raising the bar by baking enough lasagna to keep the multitudes fed, yet always in her stadium seat for kickoff. She stepped out of the classroom to serve Andover Public Schools as a Program Advisor for Science and was instrumental in developing curriculum for grades K-12, eventually returning to teaching full-time and coaching the Science Team. Any of the students who asked what the 'B' embroidered on her monogrammed lab coats stood for can now know it was for Beatrice, not "Broomhilda, and I'm very sensitive about it," as this very private person enjoyed joking. Once her own children graduated from Andover High, Rita taught science and served as department chair for Woburn High School, Harvard High School, and finally, Sharon High School, before retiring to San Diego, a longtime dream she turned into a master course in travel and discovery.

Rita quickly found her people in Osher Lifelong Learning at UC San Diego and worked with fellow retirees to administer standardized testing across the public-school districts of Southern California. She traveled extensively with nature and culture enthusiasts to see the monarch butterfly migration in spring, wildflowers blooming in the desert, countless plays and musicals, most recently an ABBA tribute band and the San Diego Symphony at Rady's Shell on the bay. The science fiction fan in her delighted in the sea of light sabers waving when John Williams would conduct at the Hollywood Bowl on Labor Day weekend. Before retiring to this climate of her dreams, Rita appreciated Boston like no other city-the Red Sox, the Garden, the museums, the Boston Pops and Esplanade fireworks, the plays and shows we could see at The Colonial before they opened on Broadway. She raised us to appreciate our hometown of Andover and to celebrate each season, from crisp foliage, sports seasons, and toboggan rides down the AHS hill, to bandstand concerts and Andover's many parades. Her investment in home life and school communities was rivalled by her reverence for nature, especially the seashore, snorkeling, and exploring as many of our National Parks as she could, often inviting her kids to tag along. A researcher at heart, Rita was seriously well-read in biographies and mysteries, and a well-traveled adventurer-Hawaii, the Caribbean, Russia, Australia, Egypt, New Zealand, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal and the Azores. This strong Portuguese girl's treatment of a steamed lobster was as thorough as any dissection in a biology lab; she would mine every last morsel, touting the nutritional value of even the green stuff, while conducting a clinic on how to keep the water from drowning your working plate.

Seven years ago, Rita decided to sell her San Diego home, choose her "last neighborhood and make new friends" in independent living at Casa de las Campanas (House of the Bells), an active community of lively minds initially established for and by retired teachers). Casa was like the college campus Rita hadn't experienced as a commuter to Merrimack; she dined with cherished friends several times a week, joined cultural outings, took exercise and yoga classes, attended lectures, homegrown performances and celebrations, tended her extensive succulent garden, and enjoyed walking the beautiful grounds. Rita also served on the Casa Residents for Education and Employee Scholarship Program executive committees. As a first-gen student herself, Rita took great pride in belonging to a community whose appreciation for Casa employees is expressed in an annual fundraising drive to support their aspirations in higher education. She loved hearing each applicant's story and admired a familiar persistence in all of them (in addition to their uncanny capacity for addressing hundreds of residents by name!). With her Casa friends, Rita also enjoyed tutoring students at Felicita Elementary School weekly as part of the Everyone A Reader Program serving Title I schools in the area; this gave her the opportunity to share her deep love of reading and to gift books she knew those little cuties would just love. Throughout her life, Rita was guided by this motto of her modest upbringing: always leave a place better than you find it. She was generous of spirit and quietly donated to causes important to her: the financial literacy of her children and all the little people who got to call her Granny, The Nature Conservancy, medical research, local organizations supporting her friends and family in times of need, candidates and representatives who concern themselves with social justice, civility, equal opportunity and access, the League of Women Voters, Habitat for Humanity, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Meals on Wheels, and her alumni associations.

Rita was predeceased by her father, who died of cancer when she was just 14 years old, her mother and maternal grandmother Francesca (also a Portuguese immigrant) whose care she managed for more than a decade, and by brothers Edward and Richard (Took), and Edwin (Fran) Couto, the "grade A first cousin" she considered more of a brother, as well as most of her beloved extended family. She is survived by four extremely grateful children: Mary Lu (Bill Walsh) of Hampton, New Hampshire, Sue (Richard Driscoll) of Austin, Texas, Rachel of Cardiff, California, and David (Axelle) of Antibes, France; 10 adoring grandchildren, 2 great-grandchildren, several nieces, nephews and cousins. Rita's family appreciates her circle of friends and family East and West, whose company she so enjoyed and whose compassion has been of great support to us. We are grateful for the neurotrauma doctors, nurses and the clergy of Scripps Memorial La Jolla, and for the occupational, speech and physical therapists who made our mom feel so well cared for, optimistic, encouraged, and comforted in her final days here.

We invite you to join us for a Mass celebrating Rita's life at 10 a.m. on Friday, December 15, in All Hallows Catholic Church, 6602 La Jolla Scenic Drive S in La Jolla. An East Coast celebration of Rita's life will happen this summer on the New Hampshire Seacoast. In lieu of flowers, please donate to a cause important to you and those you love, or to any of her favorites listed above.