Roberta Corrine Hunt Berry

Roberta Corrine Hunt Berry was born on September 22, 1940, in Crawfordsville, Indiana to Cora Helen Nichols Hunt and Robert Francis Hunt. She passed away on November 16, 2024, in East Greenwich, Rhode Island.

In addition to her parents, Roberta is pre-deceased by her brothers, William Robert Hunt and Thomas Nichols Hunt, as well as her granddaughter, Madeline Cora Berry, niece Sarah Turner, brother-in-law, Loren M. Berry III, and her ex-husband, William F. Berry.

Roberta is survived by her children, Andrea Margret Berry (Jason Dumont), Seth Alexander Berry (Julie Thomas Berry), grandchildren Ginger Madeline Berry, Alex Berry, Seth William Armand St. Pierre, and Olivia Fairweather Dumont. Much loved in-laws include Esther Berry (Loren, deceased), Patricia Thomas (Rodney, deceased) and the Thomas family, Louise Turner, and Deb Hunt (Thomas, deceased). She is survived by her nieces and nephews Scott Turner (Maria Brock), Robert Hunt (Jim Heinzman), David Hunt (Karin), Libby Turner, Loren Berry (Virginia), and Ellen Berry (Hillary).

Roberta was a quiet girl who grew into a gentle woman with a sharp mind, a huge smile, and a devotion to literature, her church, and a thirst for intellectual adventure. She was a graduate of Crawfordsville High School class of 1958, after which she moved to Painesville, Ohio to complete a bachelor's degree at Lake Erie College. She took her degree in English and moved to New York City to embark on a career with McGraw Hill Publishers. She loved telling stories about her years as “a young working girl in NYC”, a time when she lived in the Barbizon Hotel for Young Women. During this adventure she forged an enduring relationship with her best friends of over 60 years, Ann and Tom McInerney.

Roberta went on to work for many years at Indiana University’s Poynter Center in Bloomington, Indiana. She also worked for the Center for Interactive Learning in Crawfordsville and Indianapolis, Indiana. She continued to grow in her devotion to church service, completing a four-year Education for Ministry course to become an Episcopalian Lay Minister. She was a Lay Reader and Eucharistic Minister at St. John’s Church in Crawfordsville, Indiana and Grace Episcopal Church in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She served on the Alter Guild at Trinity Church in Bloomington, Indiana, as well as St. John’s and Grace Episcopal churches.

Roberta loved to garden, and loved to share that passion with her family, friends, community, and church. She completed a Master Gardening course while living in Bloomington, Indiana. She designed and nourished incredible testaments to the love of flowers, plants, trees and nature at her homes, churches and, later, her assisted living home at the Scandinavian Home in Cranston, Rhode Island, where she spent the last years happily helping with their gardens and planters.

Roberta led with love, always. She was deeply committed to the ideals of Service, Community, and Devotion - to her church and her family. She was strident in her support of the rights to dignity and equality for all humans. In addition to her gardens, Roberta’s joys included a life-long love of reading, anything from fiction, literature, and poetry to the New York Times, any local newspaper, and all historical markers found during travels or visits.

Her passion for nature included long walks, dragging her children out in the middle of the night to lie on the top of the car to behold lunar events, and keeping a sharp eye out for rainbows – which were then always reported immediately through a phone call to alert the others. Roberta also loved basketball and football, especially Indiana University basketball and football, and the Indianapolis Colts. Her favorite yearly football game was the Army-Navy match. Go Navy!

Roberta was gentle, kind and generous. She had beautiful blue-green eyes that looked like sea glass, and a smile that drew you in and made you know that you were loved. She also had a wonderful sense of humor and loved to laugh – at herself, us, ridiculous situations and events. She was a devoted friend, and wonderful mom, daughter, sister, grandma, aunt, and human being.

We will miss you immeasurably, Mom. As you carried us for all of these years in your arms and in your heart, so “I want you to be sure, that I will always carry the weight of you, for every last one of my days. Not in my arms but my heart and soul. It will always be that way” (I Carried the Weight of You, unknown).

The family wishes to thank the Scandinavian Home in Cranston, Rhode Island, for their years of care, support, and friendship for Roberta. We are also immensely grateful to Saint Elizabeth Home in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, and to Hope Hospice of Rhode Island for their truly wonderful and gentle care of Roberta, and her children, during her last days.

Services for Roberta Berry will be announced shortly. She wanted those who wished to honor her memory to plant flowers in your own garden, or bring an arrangement to your place of worship, library, elder-care center, school, or any other place where they would make someone happy.