BOSTON, Mass. – Dale Sperry Mudge, died July 13, 2005, in Boston, after a three-and-a-half year battle with colon cancer. Born in Danbury, Conn. in 1948, Dale was the daughter of Barbara Taylor Sperry and William Sperry. She graduated from Miss Hall’s School, Pittsfield, Mass., and attended the English Speaking Union on scholarship the next year. During the early years of her marriage, Dale and her husband, Taylor, moved from Boston to a farm in Lincolnville, where they restored the 19th century farmhouse, barn, and outbuildings and raised livestock. In 1983 the family moved to Chestnut Street in Camden. Following the birth and rearing of her four children, Dale resumed her formal education, earning a Bachelor of Arts with honors in anthropology from the University of Maine in 1993. Dale’s energetic zest for life, curiosity, and ability to connect with people of every stripe was legendary. Her work as an anthropologist, her love of textiles, and her readiness for adventure fostered her worldwide travels. Dale was a memorable catalyst, and her life story speaks to her ability to attract people and make things happen. Dale’s generosity and passion created opportunities for the countless people that crossed her path. Professionally Dale independently produced the documentary for the MBPN series True North titled Acadian Yarns. Broadcast in 1999, the work examined a woman’s cooperative in the St. John valley in northern Maine. In 2002, after three years of research in New Mexico, Dale co-wrote with C. Stewart Dody and Herbert Benally the book Photographing Navajos. The publication featured original photographs taken on the Navajo Reservation in the early 1950’s by John Collier Jr., and gave historical interviews with the original subjects and their descendants. This publication culminated in a traveling exhibition titled Photographing Navajos: On The Reservation, which previewed at the Albuquerque Museum in 2001-2002. Dale also wrote a chapter called Maine Yarns: Wool Textiles among Acadian Women in the Saint John River Valley that was published in 2005 in the edition Of Place and Gender: Women in Maine History. Recently, Dale initiated a project for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh to create a permanent exhibition showing the original photographs of the 1938 Belcher Islands Expedition with the Hudson Bay area and the local Inuit population as they currently exist today. A memorial in her name has been established at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pa. Perhaps the greatest testament to Dale lies in the facing of her own illness. Dale charged full steam ahead, anxious to experiment with the most aggressive treatment options available, and relishing each day with her signature optimism, courage and style. She exceeded every expectation of her medical team, and along the way garnered the love and awe of a vast network of devoted friends that includes the many Midcoast Maine families who shared child-raising years with the Mudges, members of the Navajo nation, knitters from a rural cooperative in the St. John Valley, anthropological colleagues, members of her extended family, childhood friends, and recent acquaintances. Dale is survived by her husband of 35 years, Taylor Mudge, and her four children: Webster of New York City; Matthew of Portland, Ore.; Samuel of Seattle, Wash.; and Sarah of New York City. A service in her memory will be held Sept. 10 at 1 p.m. at the Rockport Opera House. Contributions in her name may be made to the Tanglewood 4-H Learning Center in Lincolnville, or to the Dale Mudge Fund, Carnegie Musuem of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pa.
DALE SPERRY MUDGE
