GREENFIELD, MA – Jay Lord (born John Garvin Lord, Jr.), beloved husband, father, grandfather, uncle, brother, son and friend passed away on December 20th, at the age of 83, after a courageous fight with cancer.
Jay was an organizer, a teacher, a farmer, a financial steward, a social entrepreneur, a mentor, a builder, a dancer, and a problem solver. He was mischievous and brave and always ready to help and welcome others in. He was deeply committed to social justice and to the idea, practice, and power of LOCAL.
His impact on the community, through his work and ideas has been deep and broad. Jay helped launch the first Greenfield Farmers Market, founded C.O.L.T. (Citizens Opposed to Land Taking), which protected the Green River from dam development, and created a program at Greenfield Community College to help adults find new employment pathways. Jay cofounded the Greenfield Center School and the Northeast Foundation for Children where he worked as a longtime teacher and director. He served as a board member at Greenfield’s Market Food Co-op. And, most recently, Jay cofounded Just Roots, a Greenfield-based grassroots organization, that promotes community access to healthy, locally-grown food, runs one of the largest SNAP supported CSA’s in the state, and promotes food as medicine through innovative partnerships with health care organizations.
Jay’s work has had local, national, and international implications. He was a person of big ideas, but he was, at heart, a do-er, just as happy to shovel snow off a roof as he was to bring a visionary plan to the mayor’s office. In recent photographs, Jay is seen wearing a black tee shirt given to him by one of his grandchildren, chosen for its words: “Be A Nice Human.” In his own way, it was Jay’s message and his mission.
As much as he loved his work, Jay’s favorite role of all was as father and grandfather. He had two children by birth (with Karen Lord), two by marriage (with Ruth Charney), and nine grandchildren in whom he delighted. For his family he dreamt up big adventures, like the summer he decided to walk with his daughters Hannah and Apple, from their doorstep, 200 miles, to Canada! Over the last decade you may have seen Jay on smaller adventures: walking downtown with grandchild in tow, for errands, meetings with the mayor, lunch at Village Pizza, or a stop to admire the firetrucks, always instructing his little ones on the civility of saying hello. In Washington, DC, he was seen giving shoulder rides to his grandkids, and sneaking out with them for early morning donuts on the church steps.
Jay’s path to making a home in Franklin County was winding. Jay grew up in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. His father, John, was a boat builder and an inventor (think toll booths and innovative sails). His mother, Meriel, was a quilter, a needlepoint expert, and a knitter. From his parents, he inherited strong hands and an even stronger work ethic. Growing up, Jay devoted his free time to sports. He was a highly competitive pitcher, and legend has it that he was about to be scouted by the Philadelphia Phillies, only to break his arm before the scouts arrived. Instead of a professional baseball career, he went off to Amherst College (on a football scholarship).
After college, Jay joined the Peace Corps and traveled to Nigeria, where he taught English, coached track, and worked in a leper colony. After his two-year term, he returned to DC to teach at Eastern High School. Here, he advised students as they established the Freedom School, the first student-led high school in the nation. To punish Jay for his efforts, Eastern’s principal requested that the local draft board withdraw Jay’s draft deferment, thereby making him eligible for the Vietnam War. However, when 500 students walked out of the school in protest, Jay’s teaching status was reinstated. Soon after, Jay recalled he walked into a performance by Roberta Flack, who had signed on to be the music teacher of this new school, and she sang “To dream the impossible dream…” in his honor.
Following his time in DC, Jay went on to get a masters in educational policy and leadership from Harvard University. Next stop: Franklin County, where Jay and then wife Karen Lord, followed the back-to-the-land movement, building a home and establishing Fiddlehead Farm in Colrain, where they had two daughters, raised goats and chickens, and grew everything they needed for their farmer’s market stand-selling bread, jam, and pickles.
In 1980, Jay joined forces with six educators who shared a collective vision of transformative education which combined a social curriculum with academics. From this, the Greenfield Center School was born, a K-8 laboratory school on the corner of Conway and Allen Streets, and catty cornered from Foster’s. Teachers will remember how Harvey Phelps would bring over wayward fruit travelers like iguanas to share with the children. Jay led the middle school program, engaging his students in hard questions, like the meaning of zero and the strategic pathways of oil. He saw through the fog of numbers to keep the organization solvent. He took on the directorship and created a publishing arm that built the national movement of Responsive Classroom.
It was during this time that Jay met Ruth Charney, who became his dear partner and wife for the next forty-four years. Jay and Ruth shared a passion for teaching, for their students, for politics, for family, for each other, for good local food, for summers riding the waves in Truro, and for walking. Jay loved to walk the roads of our county. Every weekend, deciding on a route. Trying not to choose the same one every time, ending up on the same one every time.
Jay weathered this final stretch of life with his typical cheer and perseverance, taking care with others even as his health wavered. Jay, and his family, were buoyed and at times carried by the help of friends, family, and neighbors-each and every one appreciated-filling our hearts as they ached at our impending loss. Special thanks to the women of KIZ Helping Hands. For all, we were and are so grateful.
Jay is survived by his wife, Ruth Charney; his children, Apple Sussmann (Michael) of Washington, D.C., and Hannah Lord (Andy Mathey) of Colrain, Massachusetts, Emma Ellsworth (Tom) of Orange, MA, Daniel Ross (Lisa Rodriguez-Ross) of South Hadley, MA; and his grandchildren, Margaret, Rose, Paul, Max, Natasha, Karina, Mo, Chelsea, and Cole. He was predeceased by his parents and by his sister, Ann.
John, Jay, Dad, Bonga, Tata, son, husband, grandpa, uncle, friend, teacher, farmer, neighbor, “nice human,” you will be so deeply missed. As one friend noted, “we shall not see his like again.” But may we hold on to his faith, his optimism, his belief in “nice humans,” and his capacity to dream those “impossible dreams.”
A celebration of Jay’s life will be held on Saturday, January 24, at 2:00 pm at the Greenfield Grange (401 Chapman Street).
In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to Just Roots Farms in Greenfield, MA.
Witty’s Funeral Home, 158 South Main Street, Orange, is assisting the family.
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