Josephine S. ("Jo") Starbuck, who has been a resident of Newton or Watertown since 1969, died at her home in Cabot Park Village, Newtonville, on April 21, 2005, three months after having suffered a serious stroke. She was 83.
Mrs. Starbuck, by profession a botanist, was an avid naturalist and lover of nature, a longtime member of the Brookline Bird Club and of Mass Audubon. She was also a great lover of music, esp. of choral music. She sang in church choirs wherever she lived, incl. almost 25 years for the choir of The Eliot Church of Newton. For more than 35 years, she sang in various community choruses, starting with one in West Berlin in the 1960s, later with the Newton Choral Society, and almost 20 years for the Newton Community Chorus. The NCC will dedicate its next concert, on June 4th at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Newton Centre, to her memory.
Mrs. Starbuck grew up on a small farm near Greensboro, N.C. Like her brother, Prof. John M. Stewart, of Denver, a biochemist, and her sister, Prof. Margaret Stewart Martin of Albany, N.Y., a zoologist, she also studied biology, receiving an MA in Botany at the UNC, Chapel Hill, in 1946, and was an Assist. Prof. of Biology at Radford College, the Women's Division of VPI, 1946-54. She completed her course requirements for a Ph.D. in Botany at Penn State Univ. in 1957. Later in life, she was a Technical Assistant in the field of corn genetics and environmental science at the UMass Suburban Experiment Station in Waltham, 1970-1990. She also served as a judge at the Science Fairs for H.S. students held annually at MIT.
In 1952 Mrs. Starbuck received a fellowship from the Ford Foundation which stipulated it could to be used to study any subject, other than in her own field. Because of her interest in the relation between science and religion, she decided to spend the year studying theology at the Yale Divinity School. There she met Robert B. Starbuck, whom she married in 1954 at State College, PA, where her he was serving as the Associate Director of the Christian Association at Penn State.
In 1957, she and her husband accepted an appointment by the newly formed United Church of Christ to serve as "fraternal workers" (a program sponsored by the World Council of Churches) with the United (Lutheran and Reformed) Church in Germany, one of the grandparents of the UCC. They served there until 1969 with two industrial mission centers (in Mainz and Wolfsburg) for five years, and with two church centers in East Berlin and East Germany for six years, while residing in West Berlin. During this period they travelled widely in East Europe, incl. the USSR, attending conferences and visiting churches, in connection with the Christian Peace Conference, whose headquarters are in Prague.
Their son, Eric. S. Starbuck, was born in Wiesbaden in 1958. After working for nine years in Nepal in child survival programs, where he met his wife, Ambika Thapa, he received a Dr.PH from Johns Hopkins Shool of Public Health. He now serves as a child survival specialist with Save the Children and resides in Bethel, CT.
Mrs. Starbuck was also active for many years with the League of Women Voters in VA and PA, as well as in Newton and Watertown.
She is survived by her husband, son and daughter-in-law, sister and brother. A Memorial Service will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, May 19th, at The Eliot Church, 474 Centre St., in Newton Corner.
Memorials in her name may be sent to Save the Children 52 Wilton Rd. Westport, CT 06880 or Mass Audubon 208 South Great Rd. Lincoln, MA 01773