Donald W. Peaslee

Donald Walter Peaslee passed away on January 19, 2022 in Bedford, N.H., from failing health.  He had led a richly satisfying life.  The motto on his T-shirt was: “Living well is the best revenge”.  He loved parties.  His friends all knew him as a superbly sociable chap.

Don was born in 1935, the second son of Theodore Roosevelt Peaslee and Muriel (Boulter) Peaslee of Medford, Mass.  He graduated from Medford high school in 1953, and he obtained his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Northeastern University in 1959.

His majoring in business belied his love for mechanical things.  He had a knack for analyzing technical problems, describing them articulately, and fixing them creatively.  He was the quintessential tinkerer.  A musician friend once borrowed a melodic phrase from West Side Story and serenaded him on his birthday: “The most technical guy I’ve ever known – Don Peaslee, Don Peaslee …”.

His professional career in aerospace began with an engineering assistant position at Avco before he jumped to similar employment at RCA in Burlington, Mass.  A few years later he took the position of contracts manager at Spacetac in Bedford, Mass.  His work product always melded technical understanding with clarity in the use of the English language.  This skill was in full force when he joined MITRE in 1981.  

Don was an incredibly versatile sportsman.  During his adult lifetime, he went from racing a 1961 Austin-Healey Sprite to flying a 1977 Piper Cherokee to racing a 1985 Freedom 32 sailboat ­– and ultimately to playing golf.  He did it all without skipping a beat.

He analyzed every square inch of that Freedom 32.  He discovered design issues and fixed them.  Pearson Yachts was so impressed with his work that they gave him a mailing list of worldwide fellow owners who convinced him to publish an “F32 Newsletter”.

Let’s not forget downhill skiing in Vermont.  In 1968, at a Killington ski lodge, he met the love of his life, Sandi Kinyon – an accomplished professional pianist who taught music at Lexington High School.  They were married the following year in Memorial Church at her alma mater, Harvard University.  As a music lover, Don had found the perfect wife; as an athlete, Sandi quickly became the best crewmember Don ever took sailing.

For years, Don dabbled in real-estate ownership and management.  Some people thought he might one day become a real-estate mogul – but it was merely the perfect sideline for a man with such hands-on talent.  He once confided to a friend that he was making more money in real estate than in aerospace.  When he retired and finally decided it was time for Sandi and him to have a house of their own, he designed their extraordinary modular home in Marblehead, Mass.

Sandi’s death in 2016 took the wind out of Don’s sails.  Everybody noticed.  In 2021 he moved to an assisted-living community in New Hampshire.  Unfortunately, however, his health slid away. 

His brothers, Ted and Richard, also predeceased him, as did nephew David Peaslee and niece Sandra Peterson.  He is survived by: niece Leah Glynn of Encino, Calif.; grandniece Kaitlyn Peterson of Rochester, N.H.; grandniece McKenna Peaslee and grandnephew Gabriel Peaslee, both of Biddeford, Maine; and stepdaughter Brenda Spevak of Los Angeles, Calif.

A memorial for Don will be held after the warmth of summer overtakes Marblehead harbor once again.

Cremation Society of NH is assisting the family with arrangements. To view an online memorial, leave a message of condolence, or for more information please go to www.csnh.com