Lea Newman, 98
BENNINGTON, Vt. — Having bid farewell to friends and family, 98-year-old Lea Newman slipped away peacefully on the night of December 13, 2024, never having to move out of her beloved home. Her final wish was realized.
Wife, mother, teacher, scholar, author, and friend, Lea was an accomplished woman who made her own luck and leveraged her brains and her beauty to succeed at every endeavor she attempted. And she attempted many.
Lea was born in Chicago on August 3, 1926, the only child of Italian immigrants, Marino and Mary Bertani. Her grandmother Nonna Vera devoted herself to little Lea's care and loved her unconditionally. Lea wrote in her memoir that the security instilled early in her childhood made it possible for her to face life's challenges in her later years.
Lea graduated as valedictorian from Waller High School (now Lincoln Park HS) in 1943 and won a scholarship to attend Chicago Teachers College. It was there at a USO dance that she met her first husband Cam Vozar, a cadet in the Army Air Corps reserve. They married in 1947 and one year later their first child, a son, named Cam after his father, was born, followed in close succession by two daughters, Donna and Linda. All told, Lea would bear five children, including Mary Michelle, a daughter born in Louisiana in 1957, and Robert Marino, her final son born in Arkansas in 1962.
From early childhood on, Lea was an avid reader and by the time the family moved to Michigan in the early 1960s, she was ready to go back to school. She earned her M.A. at Wayne State University and began teaching English at the local junior college. In 1969, the family made its fifth and final move to Bennington, VT, and Lea enrolled in the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she earned her Ph.D. in English in 1979.
When her husband Cam died in 1971, Lea became the family breadwinner and leveraged her degree to become eventually a full professor at North Adams State College (now Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts). She was a gifted teacher and went on to win a Fulbright lectureship in American Literature at the University of Bologna in Italy (1973 -74) and scholar in residence at the University of Urbino in 1974.
In 1975, Lea met the man who would become her second husband, Meredith Weldon Newman, a retired Navy pilot known as Chick, who fell in love with her winning smile, wit, and effortless Italian charm. They wed in 1976 and lived in Bennington.
Lea retired from teaching in 1999 and turned her considerable focus to writing. She had already published two academic books about the short stories of Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Wanting to reach a wider audience, Lea penned two books of literary biography: Robert Frost: The People, Places, and Stories behind his New England Poetry (New England Press, 2000) and Emily Dickinson: Virgin Recluse and Rebel (Shires Press, 2013). But her most personal and perhaps most poignant book was a self-published autobiography chronicling her childhood and dedicated to her family: Growing Up Italian in Chicago (Bertani Books 2003).
Lea earned many accolades. She was past president of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society and the Herman Melville Society. She has the distinction of being the only scholar who has been president of both.
As a founder and vice-president of the Friends of Robert Frost, Lea organized and hosted the "Sunday Afternoons with Robert Frost" series at the Stone House Museum. More recently Lea spoke at two literary teas as fundraisers for Oldcastle Theatre. The first was on the poetry and life of Emily Dickenson, and the following year her subject was Robert Frost. Both were sold out.
Locally, she served as president of the Bennington Branch of the American Association of University Women (1994 -98). She was a popular professor in the Osher Lifelong Learning classes that met at the Bennington Museum, covering not only Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, and Frost, but also Dante. For more than 20 years, Lea participated in an Italian conversation group, drawing on the first language she learned and the Dante course she took to fulfill the foreign language requirement for her doctorate.
She was also a wonderful cook, making the most remarkable Italian dishes from scratch-chicken cacciatore, lasagna, ravioli, etc. Anyone who was lucky enough to taste the rich and delicate flavors at her table learned the phrase, "Si manga bene qui!" One eats well here!
Lea is survived by four of her five children, Camille Alan Vozar, Donna Vozar Olendorf, Linda Vozar Sweet, and Mary Michelle Vozar; her stepdaughter Meredith Newman Maroni; 11 grandchildren; 12 great-grandchildren; and one great-great grandson. Her youngest child Robert Marino Vozar died in 2022.
A memorial mass will be held at Sacred Heart Saint Frances de Sales Catholic Church on March 29, 2025.
Donations in her memory can be made to the Robert Frost Stone House Museum: https://www.bennington.edu/robert-frost-stone-house-donation-page
Robert Frost Stone House Museum
c/o Institutional Advancement
Bennington College
One College Drive
Bennington VT 05201-6003
