Alice McMahon

Alice McMahon passed away on October 2, 2024, at the age of 97 in hospice care at Faulkner Hospital in Boston. A former teacher at The Cambridge School of Weston, it is a tribute to the deep connections Alice made there that she spent some of her final hours with two of her former students, Lisa Hickler and Jenny Rose.

Alice is survived by her four children, Paul, Ellen, David and Peter; and her four granddaughters, Alice, Della, Hominy and Ginger, all of whom she visited with in the month preceding her death. She also leaves behind numerous nieces and nephews, legions of Cambridge School students, and her best friend of 80 years, Joan Gitlow. She lived a full and spirited life and will be missed by all who knew her and loved her for her critical eye, sharp wit, and creative spirit.

Alice was born in Stamford, Connecticut, and grew up surrounded by intellectuals and artists, including her father, George Annand; her sisters, Mary and Helen Sinclair; and her brothers-in-law, Will Barnet and Mischa Richter. Her mother Elizabeth died when Alice was young, a formative event in her life. She spent much of her childhood living with her father in a studio apartment in New York City during the school year and in Darien, Connecticut, in the summer. She also lived with both her sisters at different times.

She married Arthur McMahon, a doctor studying to be a psychiatrist, in 1949. After stints in San Diego and Virginia, where Art fulfilled his military obligations, and Topeka, Kansas, where he did his residency, they moved to the Boston area. As a young full-time mother, she graced their suburban household with style and creativity. Alice passed on her artistic DNA and refined aesthetic sensibility to all four of her children. When her children were old enough to attend school, she went back to school, earning an M.A. in Art History from Boston University to cap her earlier B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Vermont. She and Art divorced in 1976.

In the fall of 1969, she began a long and successful career as a teacher at The Cambridge School of Weston. She began by teaching art history but soon expanded her influence, teaching color theory. book arts, weaving, and the Bible. Though she was steadfastly atheist to the end, she loved the Bible and taught it, she said, as a work of literature.

Alice was also a driving force behind the off-campus program, which provided Cambridge School students with real-world experience by placing them in jobs all over the Boston area and elsewhere. For some years, she ran the bookstore and also served as a faculty representative to the board, among her many roles at the school until her retirement in the early 2000s.

In her later years, Alice focused on her own art practice, painting, drawing and making books. She also devoted herself to preserving the legacy of her father George Annand, a cartographer, many of whose maps she was able to place in the archives of Harvard Library.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests making a donation in Alice's memory to The Cambridge School of Weston at www.csw.org/give.