InDepthNH.org scans the websites of New Hampshire funeral homes each week and selects at random some of our friends, relatives and neighbors to feature in this column. The people listed here passed away during the previous weeks and have some public or charitable connection to their community. InDepthNH.org is now offering obituaries through the Legacy.com service. We view this as part of our public service mission. Click here or on the Obituaries tab at the top of our home page to learn more. And if you know of someone from New Hampshire who should be featured in this column, please send your suggestions to NancyWestNews@gmail.com.

Beverly L. Bryant, 95, of Berlin, died April 28, 2025. She and her husband Bert purchased the Parker & Holmes Funeral Home and expanded it to become Bryant Funeral Homes. She was the bookkeeper and also served on boards and organizations including the Androscoggin Valley Hospital Auxiliary, the Salvation Army, and St. Paul Lutheran Church, where she served for many years as treasurer. She was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star. (Bryant Funeral Home)

Gloria Evelyn Bunnell, 91, of Canaan, died April 28, 2025. She helped her father run the Sunoco Station in West Stewartstown, then became a telephone switchboard operator in West Stewartstown. She and two other women were hired and told not to get pregnant. All three were pregnant within a few months. In 1965, she and her husband Dean opened Bunnell’s Sales and Service in Colebrook, selling and repairing snowmobiles, outboards, boats and lawnmowers. After retiring, she was the librarian at the Alice M. Ward Memorial Library in Canaan. (Jenkins & Newman Funeral Home)

Robert Gilbert, 95, of Franconia, died April 28, 2025. He was a member of the Army National Guard and was a firefighters in the Wellesley, Mass., Fire Department. He became an investigator with the N.H. Fire Marshall’s office, and volunteered in the Franconia and Sugar Hill fire departments. He was a Grafton County Police and Fire dispatcher for many years. He also dispatched for New Hampshire State Police – Troop F, Lincoln Police Department, and Department of Transportation in Lancaster. (Legacy.com)

Wallace B. MacDermott, 87, of Bedford, died April 24, 2025. A U.S. Air Force veteran, he was a financial adviser in New York City and relocated to New Hampshire in 1969, joining Tucker Anthony in Manchester. In 1980, he founded and managed the Prudential Securities office in Manchester, later finishing his career at Merrill Lynch, retiring in 2018. He was past president of the Manchester Rotary Club, board member of New Hampshire Delta Dental and a founding member of the Bedford Soccer League and the Farnum Center in Manchester. He coached the Saint Pius X CYO basketball team. (Lambert Funeral Home & Crematory)

JoAnn Meyers, 91, of Manchester, died April 28, 2025. She served on the Goffstown School Board in the mid-1960’s and worked as a field coordinator in New Hampshire for the 1964 Presidential campaign of Nelson Rockefeller. She was co-chair of the New Hampshire Young Republicans during the 1968 Presidential campaign, then worked and volunteered for Democratic presidential and congressional campaigns. She was a caseworker at the N.H. Department of Employment Security and worked in the marketing departments of several publishing companies in New Hampshire and Boston. She was a lifelong member of Temple Adath Yeshurun in Manchester and a long-term member of its board of directors. (Lambert Funeral Home & Crematory)

John F. Swope, 86, of Concord, died April 29, 2025. He was an attorney who left a long legacy of public service including many years dedicated to public broadcasting. His connection to NHPBS began in the 1980s, later serving as interim president and CEO. He served nationally as interim president and CEO of PBS in 1999. According to the website of Granite United Way, he and his late wife, Marjory Swope, were charter members of United  Way’s Rumford Leadership Society. He retired as an attorney with Sheehan Phinney Bass + Green PA. He was president of Chubb Life and its predecessors from 1977 through 1994. He was a trustee of the Currier Museum of Art and a member of the corporation at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and overseer of the Marine Biological Laboratory. He was trustee emeritus of  the Capitol Center for the Arts, where he helped lead the campaign that reopened the old Capitol Theater into the current Capitol Center. His generous challenge gifts helped inspire others to contribute.
(New Hampshire PBS)

Dr. John David Wachnicki, 73, of North Conway, died April 22, 2025. He worked for General Foods before beginning a doctorate program in microbiology, then becoming a dentist who practiced in Connecticut. A resident of North Conway since 1990, he volunteered as an Eastern Slope Ski Club ski instructor and also working as a ski instructor at Mt. Cranmore. He designed and marketed a pocket-size boot carrier and ice scraper called a “Slope Rope.” And was a successful woodworker and taught at the Windsor Institute. (Furber Funeral Home)

WORDS OF WISDOM: “I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.” – President George Washington, Feb. 22, 1732, to Dec. 14, 1799