Harold Woods

Harold R. A. Woods, 88, died on August 7, 2019, in New Jersey, after valiantly battling a lengthy illness. Born on November 14, 1930, he grew up in Salem and Woburn, Massachusetts, attending Woburn High School, where he played football and ran cross-country track before enlisting in the United States Marine Corps in 1949. After his military service, he graduated from Boston College with a Bachelor’s degree in economics. In 1956, he met his wife, Carol, at the Merchants National Bank of Boston in downtown Boston. The two married on September 6, 1959, in Boston, later residing in Malden, Massachusetts. They relocated to Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, where he worked as an investment analyst at the Chemical Bank on Wall Street in New York City. Ultimately embarking on a career in secondary education, he received a Master’s degree in educational administration from Teacher’s College, Columbia University, New York, and, additionally, completed post-graduate studies at Syracuse University and the University of Connecticut. His career as an educator and principal in secondary schools spanned nearly forty years in various school districts, including, Highland Falls, Rome, West Seneca, and Ellenville, all in New York state, as well as East Windsor, Connecticut, and Palmer, Massachusetts. He was a lifelong bibliophile and writer who amassed hundreds of books, a sports aficionado who followed the fortunes of the Boston Celtics and New York Yankees, and was a traveler who visited every state in the continental United States, as well as nearly every Canadian province. He is survived by his beloved wife, Carol; his daughter, Jocelyn; his daughter, Audrey Gerver and son-in-law, Pernell Gerver; his son, Douglas and daughter-in-law, Rae Ann Rutkowski; his son, Roderick; and his sister, Ruth Flynn, as well as many nieces and nephews. Services will be private and at the convenience of the family.