John Adams Chater

John Adams Chater, born August 6, 1941, in Winsted, Connecticut, was the son of Rev. E. Walter Chater and Elizabeth Lloyd Chater, nee Chamberlaine. He spent much of his childhood in Harrison, New York, where his first car had to be pushed to the top of a hill and coasted down since it had no engine and no brakes. It was an early sign of his lifelong knack for adventurous problem solving.

John attended Harrison High School and later enrolled at the famously radical Goddard College in Vermont during its spirited era in the 1960s. It was there that he met his first wife, Marna. Together they had two sons, Adam Chamberlaine Chater and Myles Gile Chater. While at Goddard, John and his friend Billy Hultz helped rebuild the Haybarn, a project that became a lasting symbol of the school's community spirit.

During one memorable college summer, John, along with Thorsten Horton and Sam Clark, traveled to New Market, Tennessee, to volunteer at the Highlander Folk School, then led by civil rights educator Myles Horton. That experience helped shape John's lifelong commitment to grassroots community work.

John went on to found Central Vermont Community Action and later the Parent Child Center in Barton, Vermont. His entrepreneurial and creative streak continued when he partnered with renowned glassblower Chet Cole to establish the Vermont Glass House, producing the Vermont Bicentennial Bottle in celebration of the state.

While Reagan spent money fighting the Contras in Central America in the 1980s, John secured a grant to run the Partners of the Americas Vermont–Honduras farmer-to-farmer program. This work brought him to Honduras, which became home for many years. Aside from brief periods in Washington, D.C., Mexico, and Guatemala, Honduras remained the heart of life for John, his wife Marta, and their daughter Sara Elizabeth.

John lived with extraordinary resilience. Over the years he outlived malaria three times, survived dengue fever twice, weathered hepatitis, and made it through Covid on three separate occasions. A serious case of shingles later in life cost him some of his vision in his left eye, yet he adapted with the same determination and adventurous spirit he brought to every challenge. His life abroad also included two and a half years in Mexico, and two years in Guatemala, places he loved dearly.

In his later years, John relocated to the Boston area, where he spent the last year and a half facing complications from Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma with the same doggedness that had carried him through so much of life.

John is survived by his wife, Marta Chater, his son Adam and granddaughter Marion, his son Myles and daughter-in-law Lori, his daughter Vivian and son-in-law Dawayne Mosier and grandsons David and Michael, his daughter Sara Chater, and his loving sister Elizabeth "Bobbie" Callard, nicknamed by John because he couldn't say the word "baby" when she was born. He is also survived by Oswaldo Sierra, who he loved and raised like a son and many other loved family members to whom he opened his home to over the years. He is at rest and will be forever loved.

Donations can be made in his memory to Migrant Justice at https://migrantjustice.net/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1