Ellen "McKee" M Peck

"South Hadley-Ellen Margaret McKee Peck, a resident of Loomis Village, who formerly lived at Silverwood Terrace, passed away peacefully October 12, 2019 after a four year battle with cancer. The love of her family and friends surrounded her at her passing. The daughter of Wallace Bruce McKee and Margaret Killoh McKee, Ellen was born in Aspinwall, a town near Pittsburgh PA, where she lived until graduation from high school in 1958. She received her BA Magna Cum Laude from Allegheny College in 1962, and her PhD from Stanford in 1973. A major in English and American literature, she wrote a dissertation comparing the feminist perspectives of four novelists--Janet Lewis, Ellen Glasgow, Anais Nin, and Virginia Woolf. After time out for child rearing, she taught English Literature and Writing at Wellesley College, and Mt. Holyoke College, moving to South Hadley in 1977. When she retired from teaching, she worked as a docent at the Mt. Holyoke College art museum and the Springfield Museums. For three years she was the Western MA representative at the National Docent Council. Since 1980 she was a member of All Saints Episcopal Church in South Hadley, serving as treasurer, a vestry member, and a choir singer. She helped shepherd the congregation in the building of a new church in 2008. She was a member of the board of the South Hadley Chorale. She was also Council secretary and an active member of Five College Learning In Retirement. When she lived in Princeton NJ, she helped the local N.O.W. chapter develop and edit an influential small book Dick and Jane as Victims which studied gender roles portrayed in school readers. In the later part of her life she became a world traveler whose adventures included a camping trip through Syria and Jordan, a hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti Plains, a boat and camping trip through the Okavango Delta, canoeing on the Zambesi River near Victoria Falls, traveling across the Andes, and riding down from the Tibetan Plateau on a rock-strewn dirt road above the Ganges River. Ellen is survived by her daughter Ingrid Peck of South Hadley, Ingrid’s father and her former husband John Peck of Maine, her sister Ailsa and husband John Wallace of Fraserburgh, Scotland, and a niece Jill Wallace and nephew Scott Wallace. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Five College Learning In Retirement or WGBY TV. A funeral will be held Thursday, Oct. 17th at 12:00 p.m. at All Saints Church in South Hadley. A reception will follow. Beers & Story South Hadley Funeral Home has been entrusted with the arrangements. For details, please visit www.beersandstory.com"