Joseph M. Tracy

08/11/2002

Joseph Murray Tracy, 87, of 49 Main St. died Sunday at Fairview Commons in Great Barrington. Mr. Tracy served on the Stockbridge School Committee from 1950 to 1968 and on the Berkshire Hills Regional School District from 1968 to 1973. Born in Pittsfield on July 6, 1915, son of Joseph M. and Katherine M. McDermott Tracy, he was a 1933 graduate of the former Williams High School, where he was captain of the basketball and baseball teams. He attended St. Michael's College and earned a bachelor's degree in physical education in 1938 from Springfield College, where he played three years of varsity baseball and was captain his senior year. He was a Navy veteran of World War II, serving as a lieutenant in the Naval Air Corps from 1942 to 1946. Mr. Tracy taught biology at Williams High School from 1938 to 1942 and coached the basketball and baseball teams. The baseball team won two Southern Berkshire championships and a county championship. He also was a catcher for the Pittsfield Athletic Club from 1938 to 1942. In 1944, he became a referee for Berkshire County basketball. In 1989, he was an inaugural inductee to the Spartan Hall of Fame, named from Williams High School, for both his high school and coaching achievements. He joined Gorham & Norton Inc. of Great Barrington in 1947, which was founded in 1911, and was eventually made a partner. His son John P. Tracy now owns and operates the business. He and his wife, the former Margaret Norton, would have celebrated their 58th anniversary Aug. 17. Besides his wife and son, of Great Barrington, he leaves another son, C. Joseph Tracy of Interlaken; two daughters, M. Elizabeth Gamble of Wellesley and Katherine E. Tracy of Hebron, Conn.; a brother, William E. Tracy of Hilton Head, N.C.; 11 grandchildren, and a great-grandson. Services will be Friday, Aug. 16, at 9:30 from BIRCHES-ROY FUNERAL HOME, followed by a Liturgy of Christian Burial at 10:30 in St. Joseph's Church, Stockbridge, celebrated by the Rev. Steven F. McGuigan. Burial will follow in St. Joseph's Cemetery. Family will receive friends on Thursday, Aug. 15, from 4 to 7. Expressions of sympathy in Joseph's memory may be made to the Stockbridge Library or to the Children's Health Program, c/o Birches-Roy Funeral Home, 33 South St., Great Barrington, MA 01230.

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