John Cotter
John Cotter, a Cohasset native, died May 2 in a swimming accident while vacationing in Vietnam. He was 25.
Mr. Cotter graduated from St. Sebastian's School in Needham and earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University in 2006. Interested in coastal management engineering, Mr. Cotter began working for Great Lakes Dredge & Dock as a production engineer after graduation. In 2006, he worked in Manama, Bahrain, creating artificial islands in the Persian Gulf.
He was passionate about the water, said his uncle, Timothy Cotter. He taught adult sailing in Cohasset when he was a teenager and chose a profession that kept him working on the coast. He also loved to travel, and during his time off, took trips around the world. He had visited six continents, his family said.
Mr. Cotter leaves his parents, Dr. Paul B. and Margaret (Barres); two brothers, Nathaniel and Paul III; his paternal grandmother, Mary E. Cotter; and his maternal grandparents, Oliver M. and Marjorie (Catchpole) Barres. A funeral Mass will be said at 2 p.m. today at St. Anthony Church in Cohasset.
Louise Ann Lewis
Louise Ann (Silbert) Lewis, an environmental activist and businesswoman, died April 26 of Lou Gehrig's disease at her Boston home. She was 75.
Mrs. Lewis, a Roxbury native, helped protect parts of Boston's waterfront from development in the late 1960s and worked with state lawmakers to designate some of the Harbor Islands as a state park, friends and family said. She was a founding member of the Massachusetts Chapter of the Sierra Club and was active in the club for three decades. Mrs. Lewis chaired the chapter's transportation committee, pressing for a rail connection between North and South stations.
Starting in 1991, Mrs. Lewis was a member of the Bridge Design Review Committee that advised the Massachusetts Highway Department on a $600 million contentious proposal for a Charles River crossing known as Scheme Z. Based largely on the committee's work, the plan was abandoned.
In 1958, Mrs. Lewis and her husband opened John Lewis Inc., a jewelry store on Newbury Street. "She was the person in charge of making the whole thing work, which was a real challenge," Mr. Lewis said.
Mrs. Lewis also loved to sail, and she and her husband would often ply the waters of Boston Harbor and elsewhere along the Eastern Seaboard.
In addition to her husband, Mrs. Lewis leaves a brother, Martin Silbert of Bluffton, S.C. A memorial service will be held at a later date.
CARY, Tristram - In Canberra, Australia, April 24, at 82. A pioneer of electronic music, Mr. Cary helped design one of the first portable synthesizers.
