Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

Harold Posselt

Harold Posselt

KENT — Hal Posselt, 76, passed away in Connecticut on Oct. 1, 2023. Hal was born in Sharon on April 5, 1947, to Oscar and Lisbeth (Griesser) Posselt, who both left Germany in 1930. He leaves his wife, Edith (Edie) Parker Posselt, and many nephews, nieces, cousins and good friends.

Hal grew up in Kent and attended Kent Center School, South Kent School and graduated from Housatonic Valley Regional High School in 1965. He received a B.A. from the University of Connecticut in 1969. As a senior, Hal participated in UConn’s first Urban Teaching Program in Hartford before student teaching and receiving Masters degrees in Counseling and Education.

Hal met his beloved wife, Edie, in 1977 when they both worked as guidance counselors in North Conway, New Hampshire. They married in 1980 and undertook a partnership of adventure and collaboration for forty-three years, welcoming family, friends and former students into their lives.

As a teacher and guidance counselor in schools in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Hal was known as a caring and involved educator. Students sought his advice and guidance in planning for college and work and getting through the minefield of teenage life. He was an advocate for students and is remembered as kind and understanding. At the same time, he was direct and uncompromising regarding the need for commitment, hard work and planning. Hal wasn’t judgmental or opinionated but argued for a kinder, more inclusive viewpoint in general. Many of his former students kept in touch with him for more than forty years. After his official retirement, Hal tutored young refugee students in English as a Second Language.

Hal is remembered as having made a difference at Concord High School, Kennett Jr./Sr. High, Bow High School and Broken Ground School in New Hampshire and MacKay School in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. During his years as an educator, Hal lived in Fitchburg, and Snowville, Concord, Canterbury and Portsmouth, New Hampshire before moving to Storrs in 2020.

An enthusiastic outdoorsman, Hal loved being active and encouraged others to discover the joy of hiking, skiing, rock-climbing and biking. He loved traveling and enjoyed visiting relatives in Germany and the western U.S., and friends in Australia, Venezuela, Switzerland and elsewhere. Hal was a spirited UConn basketball fan and found pleasure in the music and other offerings of the college campus. He loved cats, Siamese in particular.

In addition to his wife, Edie, Hal is survived by his sister Catherine Posselt Bachrach (Bill) of Kent, their daughters Jaime Bachrach (Tim Clew) and Andrea Bachrach Mata (Keith Morse) as well as by nephews Theo Posselt (Doug Ng), Daniel Posselt and Abram Barker. His sister, Elisabeth Posselt Barker, and brother, Ted Posselt, predeceased him.

Lakeville Journal

Latest News

Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

On Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Cornwall Historical Society, author and genealogist John Mills will breathe new life into the stories of some of Connecticut’s more underappreciated patriots. The reason these heroes were forgotten? They were Black.

At a time when white colonists were fighting for their own liberty and political independence, many Black men who fought alongside them remained enslaved. Some risked their lives only to return to bondage. Though enslaved people were promised freedom from both sides of the Revolutionary War in exchange for their service, Great Britain, too, was still deeply dependent on slavery. For Black people in America, the war presented both extraordinary risks and uncertain paths to the freedom that white colonists were demanding for themselves.

Keep ReadingShow less
education

A sanctuary for second chances

A sanctuary for second chances

Stephanie Saetta runs Charlie Chicken Bones, a sanctuary in Salisbury.

Madi Long
You only get one or two of these soul connection dogs, so I do this in his honor.
— Stephanie Saetta

Stephanie Saetta has spent much of her life caring for others. A physician at White Plains Hospital, she has another calling at home in Salisbury — one that has four legs and a wagging tail. She runs Charlie Chicken Bone Sanctuary, a nonprofit dog rescue that brings dogs from overcrowded pounds and the streets of Texas to foster homes in northwestern Connecticut, where they can begin again.

The sanctuary is named for Charlie, the dog who taught her how special a bond between a person and rescue animal can be.

Keep ReadingShow less
our community

Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Hunter Runnette, founder and board chair of field, has spent years fostering arts and cultural programming in the Berkshires.

Provided

What do joy, gardening, artificial intelligence, the American experiment and the creative process have in common? Quite a lot, as it turns out, at least when some of the world’s most compelling thinkers get together to talk about them.

From Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25, Lenox, Massachusetts, will host the inaugural field festival, a three-day gathering of writers, artists, scholars and cultural figures at Shakespeare & Company. Billed as a festival of ideas, entertainment, learning and discovery, field brings together an impressive roster of voices to explore everything from the deeply personal to the profoundly political.

Keep ReadingShow less
community
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

The Pink House AM is serving up community

The Pink House AM is serving up community

Mare Rubin and Maggie Levine of the Pink House AM.

Madi Long

It all started with a yoga class. Mare Rubin was working on her second act after leaving the Upper West Side, where she’d raised a family and worked in corporate marketing. Newly empty nesters, she and her husband decided to move to the wilds of northwestern Connecticut, where they had spent 15 years as weekenders, to see what life in the woods had in store for them.

Rubin started teaching yoga classes at the Union in West Cornwall, a space designated by the town of Cornwall as a community hub with couches, Wi-Fi, occasional events and a growing yoga class schedule. She was adjusting well but missed one important thing about city life: a casual coffee shop.

Keep ReadingShow less
business

Sons of Astro are musicians, friends and bandmates — in that order

Sons of Astro are musicians, friends and bandmates — in that order

The Sons of Astro will be at the Common Pub in Housatonic on Oct. 24 and the 2nd Home Lounge in Winsted on Nov. 14.

Provided

No matter where they are in the world, musicians seem to find other musicians. There’s a shared language, a shared experience of being on stage and performing, and a shared enthusiasm for making those melodies by themselves or together. Such is the case with Norfolk and Brooklyn-based cosmic Americana band Sons of Astro.

That magnetic musicians’ bond drew Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mike Cobb into the orbit of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matt Statler. The two neighbors took to each other right away and were soon playing open mics together. As an ethics professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Statler made the case that if he sat in for Cobb’s set and Cobb sat in for Statler’s, they could play together and double their stage time. Clearly, these men wanted to make as much music as possible. That became a little harder when Cobb and his family moved up to Norfolk, Connecticut.

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts

One more weekend to get inside the art at ArtEast

One more weekend to get inside the art at ArtEast

The participating artists in this year’s ArtEast open studios.

Provided

ArtEast’s annual October Open Studio Tour is already underway, but there’s still one more weekend to step inside the creative worlds of artists working throughout eastern Dutchess County. On Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 24 and 25, artists will once again open their studio doors, inviting visitors to see where the work happens, meet the people who make it and perhaps discover something worth taking home.

Now in its 21st year, the ArtEast October Open Studio Tour offers a self-guided journey with participating studios in Holmes, LaGrangeville, Hopewell Junction, Pawling, Patterson, Poughquag and Wingdale. Visitors can explore painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media and other artistic practices, and get some leaf-peeping in at the same time.

Keep ReadingShow less
open-studio
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.