Edith Bacon, Artist And Teacher, 50
DGH
Edith (Noble) Bacon, of Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and Sherborn,
Massachusetts, died at her home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, on
Friday, July 1, 2005, after battling a rare form of cancer for twelve
years, at the age of 50.
An artist and mother of five, best known as ""Edie," Mrs. Bacon was an
inspiration to many cancer patients, as well as her own family, family
members said. After being diagnosed with metastastic soft-tissue
sarcoma in 1993, she was constantly searching for ways to fight the
illness.
Mrs. Bacon sought alternative treatments from the Caribbean to Germany,
becoming knowledgeable about coping with the debilitating disease .
After coming across unsuccessful treatments, Mrs. Bacon found another
outlet for her strength. She testified before a grand jury in 2002 in a
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, federal court against a doctor who was
treating desperate patients in the Dominican Republic. The doctor was
later convicted of fraud.
Born in New York City, New York, Mrs. Bacon lived from 1955 to 1963 in
Beirut, Lebanon, where her father was employed.
After moving back to the United States, she attended the Brearley
School in New York and later graduated from the Westover School in
Middlebury, Connecticut, in 1972.
She graduated in 1979 from Boston University, where she concentrated in
painting at the School of Fine Arts. She taught art classes at the
Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, from 1979 to
1981.
During this time, she also had shows of her art in Boston,
Massachusetts, and Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts.
Mrs. Bacon married Carter Bacon in 1981, and the couple settled in
Sherborn. In addition to taking care of her children, Mrs. Bacon was a
member of the Sherborn Arts Council.
In November 2002 Mrs. Bacon wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street
Journal urging Johnson & Johnson to allow her to participate in a drug
trial in Texas that would be otherwise off limits for her because of
federal regulations. The piece was persuasive, and Mrs. Bacon took the
experimental drug for a year.
According to her husband of 24 years, Mrs. Bacon found every avenue to
prolong her own life. She would also explain a doctor's jargon to
strangers suffering from cancer.
"She had an enormously large number of friends, and it grew
exponentially when she got sick," Carter Bacon said. "Wherever she
went, she became friends with all of the patients."
Mrs. Bacon is remembered not only for her spirit, her family said, but
also for her oil paintings and the original ink Christmas cards that
adorn many of their walls, work characterized by soft but realistic
strokes.
Mrs. Bacon was a modest woman with a clever sense of humor, said her
sister-in-law, Sally Bacon, of Needham. She enjoyed playing golf and
sailing.
Besides her husband, Mrs. Bacon leaves a daughter, Elizabeth; four
sons, Carter, Nathaniel, Peter, and Samuel, all of Sherborn; three
brothers, John Noble of Boston, Christopher Noble of Marion, and George
Noble of Manchester-by-the-Sea; and numerous nieces and nephews.
Boston Globe