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| Joseph Dewey | |
Joseph Dewey, who founded the Williams Bookstore, Williamstown, Mass., died November 9. He was 99. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Dewey spent summers with his family in Williamstown. He enlisted in the Navy at 17, and after his discharge followed a Dewey family tradition by enrolling at Williams College, graduating in 1951 with a degree in English Literature.
He remained in Williamstown for the rest of his life. In 1957, he followed his interest in books and art by founding the Williams Bookstore on Spring St., to serve the public, students, and faculty of the college. It was open from 1957 until 1989, when he retired.
Dewey "was a man of intense creativity and curiosity, a poet, and reader of all manner of literature, art books and poetry," his obituary noted. "All of the arts played a large role in the home he and Joy [his first wife, Joy Anne Ross] created."
His family wrote in the obituary: "Hopefully he is on the water or slopes, or in deep conversation with Marcel Duchamp, Cole Porter or John Ashbery. He will be deeply missed by his loving family and the town that sustained him."