Anthony E. Giangrasso ’48

Anthony E. Giangrasso, M. D., age 83, of Trumbull, beloved husband of Bettie Brackett Giangrasso, passed away on Monday, February 11, 2013.

He was born in Astoria, Long Island on September 9, 1929 and was a son of the late Thomas and Nancy (Giaimo) Giangrasso. The family moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut in the early thirties and to Trumbull in 1938. He attended grammar school in Long Hill Trumbull and then later Central High in Bridgeport.

In 1948, he graduated from Williston Academy in Easthampton, Massachusetts. Following prep school, Dr. Giangrasso attended Georgetown University and later Fairfield University where he received his B. S. degree with Cum Laude honors in 1953. The following year, Dr. Giangrasso received an assistantship in biology at Boston College. In 1954, he was accepted into Creighton School of Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska where he received his medical doctorate in 1958.

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Barry R. Blaker ’51

Barry R. Blaker beloved husband of Angela (Castellone) Blaker, loving father of Spencer M. of Bahama, NC and David A. of Yaphank, NY and grandfather of Noah Josephine and Samuel Clayton Blaker of Bahama, North Carolina and son of the late Dr. Samuel I. Blaker and Frieda Blaker passed suddenly on Tuesday January 29th, 2013. Barry was a graduate of Yale_University, served in the U.S. Army from 1958-1960 and worked for Cabot Corporation as a patent agent for 30 years until his retirement . Barry was a private pilot, sportsman and loved fishing, hunting, gardening and spending time with his children and grandchildren; whom he loved with heart and soul. Services were held at Levine Chapel Friday, Feb. 1. Burial was private. In his memory donations may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital , PO Box 50 Memphis, TN 38101 www.stjude.org.

Cynthia L. Brandts ’80

WARE – Cynthia Lynn Brandts, 51, took her leave Jan. 14, 2013.

She is survived by her daughter Elisha; her father and step-mother, John and Linda; her mother Susan; her sisters, Debbie Bettag (WNS ’79) and Melanie Murphy; and her brothers, Mike, Bob and Brad.

Cindy partially negotiated the Amherst school system, attended Williston Academy and after a brief stint at Emory College in Atlanta, earned first her bachelor’s degree, then her master’s degree in business administration at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Math and analysis, be it business, inventory, marketing or whatever, was her forte.

Calling the Pioneer Valley home, she worked for Microcal, Inc., R. R. Donnelley, and James River Graphics.

By any measure, Cindy was a trip. Life, as filtered through her presence, was impossibly full. While some might have seen her embracing of extremes as disturbingly untenable, others found her rush toward experience to be alchemic; she transformed darkness to light, despair to hope, anguish to laughter.

She collected antiques, loved to fish, was a stalwart adventurer and in her words, had always been “an outdoors gal, at heart.”

In the final months of her life, she discovered the writings of Eckhart Tolle and stepped into a world of which she’d been catching glimpses since early childhood. In awareness, and with intention, she focused the wisdom she’d earned through trials and traumas, and came to extend also to herself the infinite generosity she had always extended to others.

A private funeral was held at Douglass Funeral Home, in Amherst, on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2013.

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