Obituary of Nancy Coke Atwood

1933-2023

Nancy Coke Atwood left this earth peacefully on April 29, 2023, at the age of 90, at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass., of complications from a heart attack.

Beloved mother of four children, Nancy retired in 2003 after many years as a psychotherapist in private practice in Boston and in Wellesley, Mass. With a warm and empathetic soul, and a deep commitment to her profession, she helped hundreds of families and individuals in the Boston area to overcome adversity and live better lives. She earned a PhD from the Heller School at Brandeis University in 1983 after earning two master’s degrees in urban affairs and social work at Boston University. She was a member of the adjunct faculty at Smith College School of Social Work and author of many articles on psychology and social policy in academic journals. She was also the co-editor of an anthology of memoirs about growing up in the American working class, “Coming of Age in a Hardscrabble World,” published by the University of Georgia Press and used as a college text.

Yet the achievement she was most proud of was her four children, whom she raised mostly by herself after the death of her husband, Roger Pratt Atwood, in 1965. She enjoyed reading, cooking, classical music, and spending time with her children and grandchildren, and she was a champion Scrabble player. She was active until late in life in the Unitarian Universalist First Church in Boston. She also enjoyed travelling, cultural events, and volunteer work for many progressive causes with her partner in later years, David Berkowitz, who died in 2019.

Nancy Coke Smith was born on January 2, 1933, in Norwalk, Connecticut, the daughter of architect Perry Coke Smith and artist and teacher Martha (“Patty”) Cary Smith, née Pratt, later Miller. Nancy graduated with a degree in English from Wellesley College in 1954 and later worked as a public-school teacher. Always creative and energetic, and with a spirit of compassion for those less privileged, she worked at several hospitals and mental-health facilities. She later developed a successful, licensed psychotherapy practice at her home in the Bay Village neighborhood of Boston, specializing in family therapy and substance abuse treatment. At Christmas every year, she would receive stacks of cards from her grateful patients.

Until 2007 she spent part of the year in her beloved house on Jerusalem Road in Cohasset, where she enjoyed walks on the beach and was an active member of the Straits Pond Watershed Association. She lived later at 36 Irving Street in Cambridge, until moving to Cadbury Commons nursing home in August 2022. She is survived by daughters Emily G. Gawboy of Leominster, Mass., and Gwendolyn C. Atwood, of Ghent, N.Y.; and sons Roger Alexander Atwood, of Washington, D.C., and Christopher P. Atwood, of Havertown, Penn., and a brother, Monty Johnston, of Natural Bridge Station, Va., and six grandchildren.