(April 14, 1915--June 5, 2002)

NORWOOD--The funeral for Eva M. Strait dean, 87, formerly of Porter Lynch Road, will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at Buck Funeral Home with the Rev. Lee Sweeney, pastor of Knapps Station Community Church, officiating. Burial will be in South Russell Cemetery.

 Mrs. Dean died Wednesday evening at Community Nursing Home, Potsdam, where she had been a resident since Dec. 15, 1997.

 Calling hours are 7 to 9 p.m. today at the funeral home.

 She was a local correspondent for the Watertown Daily Times, covering Norfolk and Norwood, headed the Canton News bureau for Northern New York Publishing Co. in 1961 and 1962 and transferred in 1963 to the Potsdam Courier-Freeman, where she held positions as assistant editor, women’s editor, acting editor and editor until Dec. 31, 1966. She was appointed Potsdam bureau manager for the Watertown Daily Times in 1968.

 Mrs. Dean also served as a liaison staff worker for Assemblyman Edward J. Keenan and was a public relations consultant.

 Born April 14, 1915, in Grafton, daughter of Warren L. and Edith B. Leary Strait, she was a graduate of Knox Memorial High School, Russell, and Potsdam Normal School. She married Lawrence O. Dean on May 14, 1934, at the First Methodist parsonage, Norfolk, with the Rev. David McVeigh officiating. Mr. Dean died June 10, 2000.

 She was a member of North Stockholm Methodist Church, a member and past regent of Nihanawate Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a past member and officer of the St. Lawrence County Republican Committee and a member of St. Lawrence County Federation of Republican Women. She was also a member and past president of St. Lawrence County Council of Senior Citizens.

 A dedicated amateur genealogist, she researched and compiled volumes of family history and documented lineage chronologies. She was a volunteer with Stockholm Historical Museum, assisting people with family records.

 Surviving are three sons and two daughters-in-law, Warren and Shirley, Norwood, Lawrence O. Jr. and Linda, Pasadena, Texas, and Maurice M., Houston, Texas; three daughters and their husbands, Janice and Robert Rice, Liverpool, Patricia and Patrick Rourk, Norwood, and Penelope and Michael Fredel, Syracuse; a sister, Jessie Barraford, Texas; 19 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren and several nieces and nephews.

 A son, Robert Lawrence Dean, died May 4, 1999.

 Donations may be made to the Eva Strait Dean Endowment, Potsdam College Foundation.

(Taken from the Friday, June 7, 2002 edition of the Watertown Daily Times, page 33).