Dorothy Janet Hopton,86

WILLIAMSTOWN, MA- Dorothy Janet Hinckley Hopton (known to all as “Janet”) died peacefully at Berkshire Medical Center on Saturday December 11th, 2021. She was born Dorothy Janet Hinckley on January 23, 1935 in East Orange, New Jersey, and grew up in Verona, New Jersey in her family’s home across from her beloved Verona Park. Janet was the wife of the late physician Dr. Edwin Hostetter Hopton who died on December 15, 2019. They were married for almost sixty years. She was the daughter of Dorothy Marie Ringkvist and Charles Herbert Hinckley. A second generation American, Janet was of Swedish (Kungsor, Ondskoldsvik) and English (Hereford) descent.

Janet went to New Jersey College for Women of Rutgers University, and completed her Bachelor of Science degree and Nursing degree at Upsala College and Mountainside Hospital in Montclair New Jersey in 1958. She worked as an RN in pediatrics and labor and delivery at Mountainside Hospital. Later she lived and worked as a nurse in both Norway and England, and attended the International Summer School in Oslo, and the University of Oslo while also working as a staff nurse in Oslo Hospital.

Janet married Edwin Hostetter Hopton, son of Mr. and Mrs. Earl V. Hopton of Lancaster, Pennsylvania in January of 1961. They lived in Philadelphia, PA where she taught Anatomy and Physiology and nursing at Temple University School of Nursing, and worked as a nurse in the hospital while her husband was completing his residency in internal medicine. Janet and Ed settled in Princeton, NJ and later Hershey, PA where they lived and worked and started a family before moving to Williamstown, MA in 1971.

For many years Janet worked for Northern Berkshire Association for Retarded Citizens (known as NOBARC) where she served as the resident RN and medical liaison, and led one the earliest efforts in the region to establish and promote a program for the sexual education and sexual rights of those with mental disabilities.

She was a member of the Pine Cobble School board of trustees where she fought to raise teacher salaries and was an outspoken proponent of a robust scholarship fund that became the centerpiece of annual fundraising which mitigated the exclusivity of a private school education.

She was a dedicated volunteer with Literacy Volunteers of Berkshire County where she established lasting friendships within the immigrant community; the health of which, she believed, assured the continued diversification and vibrancy of her precious Berkshire hills.

Janet ended her professional career managing Ed’s office in the Doctor’s Building next to the hospital in North Adams, where she established and maintained spirited and supportive relationships with most, if not all, of Ed’s patients.

She lived most of her life in a yellow house right along Rte 7 in Williamstown—the first, last and only home she and Ed ever owned. She loved good food and fine dining and cooking—she worked one summer in the kitchen at Blantyre in Lenox—and she loved her grand collection of cookbooks, but never surprised any of us when she proclaimed things like her hospital cafeteria beef barley soup to be the ‘best soup she had ever tasted.’

Janet literally never received a gift she did not love, though her most cherished possessions were probably her late father’s monkey wrench, her mother’s bleached smooth laundry stick, and the cutting board her husband Ed made in Lancaster when he was a boy—all of which she continued to use in her home. Her favorite flowers were lilacs, black-eyed susans, and yellow roses.

She loved to ski and canoe and hike and sing (for years she sang with the Williams Choral Society) and loved going to Tanglewood with Ed. She loved her cats and dogs. Janet was known for and proud of her red hair, but refused to dye it even as it lightened. She was most comfortable in cutoffs and a t-shirt, at home, working on one of her projects as Ed blared Mahler or Handel or, occasionally, Janet’s favorite Cat Steven’s album from his music room above the garage. She frequently laughed (no kidding) until her eyes filled with tears. Above all, she loved her kids.

Despite suffering from a disease of decline, Janet’s good nature and happy spirit, her conviction of being remarkably lucky and blessed by good fortune and love, never left her.

Janet leaves her children, Dorothy W. Hopton of New York City; Charles H. Hopton of North Adams; E. Spencer Hopton of Amherst MA; and Trevor Hopton of Bridgeport CT; as well as her daughter-in-law, Lorma D. Hopton of Amherst (wife of Spencer ) and her grandson Charles L. Hopton of Amherst ( son of Spencer and Lorma). Janet is also survived by her brother Dr. C. Richard Hinckley and his wife, her sister-in-law, Jo Ann “Joann” Hinckley of Northampton.

A funeral service will be held Friday, January 7th at 11:00 am at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Williamstown, followed by a burial at Westlawn Cemetery. To add to the Book of Memories, please visit www.flynndagnolifuneralhomes.com