ROCKLAND — John Trumbull Robinson Pierson died on November 18, 2018 in Rockport, Maine. He was 81 years old.

He was the son of Gertrude Trumbull Robinson (1908 - 1994) and John Herman Groesbeck Pierson (1906 - 2001). 

He is survived by his wife of 49 years, Karen Zamecnik Pierson; daughters, Eliza Trumbull Pierson, Katherine Zamecnik Pierson, both of New York, Isabella Pierson Feracci, executive director of the Apprentice Shop in Rockland, sons-in-law, Jeff Conaway and Martin Feracci; and grandchildren, Freya Beatrice Pierson Grant and Alastair Cornelius Pierson Conaway. 

He was predeceased by his sister, Elizabeth Groesbeck Pierson Friend. 

The cause of death was complications due to Frontotemporal Dementia.  

John was born in New Haven, Connecticut on March 17, 1937, Saint Patrick’s Day; so he was known in the family as Paddy.  When he was five years old and visiting family friends in an apartment overlooking 5th Avenue he watched the St. Patrick’s Day parade and thought it was for his birthday. The next winter he broke his leg skiing in Central Park so he early discovered the ups and downs of living in NYC.  

John came from a long line of Yankee Brahmins and was expected to follow in their footsteps to Yale where two colleges were named after his ancestors. Always independent minded, he went to Harvard and further dismayed his family when he took ballet in freshman year. 

He had fallen in love with a ballet dancer in Bangkok whom he met while visiting his father in summer of freshman year. 

He was a graduate of Exeter 1955, Harvard 1959, Yale MA in history 1962. He said that he squandered his Harvard education skylarking with friends - sending slingshots of water balloons from his room on the third floor of Adams House across Mount Auburn Street to Lowell House courtyard. One prank found him climbing the tower of St. Paul’s church to hang out a pair of undies. And in his last year at Harvard he thought his senior thesis was so bad that before handing it in he invited friends to a party to throw it into the fireplace.

But he did develop a passion for literature and writing. And he made writing his profession.

His friendships he maintained with frequent communications until he could no longer use the computer or telephone. 

He became a journalist writing first at the Plattsburgh Press Republican in Plattsburgh, NY and then going to Washington DC to write for UPI.  He worked for The Wall Street Journal for 30 years starting in 1967 first covering the House Ways and Means Committee in Congress. 

He was the WSJ White House Correspondent during the terms of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.  His coverage of Nixon and the Watergate Hearings earned him a place on Nixon’s enemies list.  That was an honor he relished. 

In 1980 he moved with his wife Karen and three small daughters to Woodstock, Vermont to enjoy an outdoor life on the family farm. His mother, Gertrude Bourne and stepfather, Henry T. Bourne lived on Maplewood Farm along the Ottauquechee River on River Road.

John and Karen built a house attached to the old sugarhouse on the farm. John enjoyed mowing the fields and chopping wood for the stoves in their house.

He continued to write halftime for the WSJ. He wrote also for Fortune and Forbes Magazines. He served on the Woodstock School Board and the Connecticut River Watershed Council. And he taught the farm hired man how to read. Missing the camaraderie of working in a newsroom, he also took a job at the Valley News in Lebanon, NH.  

A project that he shared with his father was reforesting a beautiful remote tract of land on the Cycladic island of Syros in Greece. About 15,000 seedlings were set out over 20 years and finally 5,000 pine trees survived and have grown to 20 feet tall in sheltered places.

John spread his father’s ashes in Grammata Bay and under the trees. His family will spread John’s ashes there in the summer. 

When his three daughters went off to college and mother and stepfather died, he and Karen moved in 2001 to Cambridge, MA. There he enjoyed the privileges of being a Harvard graduate and the fun of being close to museums and music. He took singing lessons and enjoyed learning Schubert lieder and Britten folk songs and swimming in the Harvard pools. 

Even though his Aphasia impeded his speaking he could still sing. But going up and downstairs in the Cambridge townhouse became difficult so in July 2017 they moved to Rockland, Maine to share a house with their daughter Bella and her husband, Martin Feracci. 

Although his illness was worsening, he still enjoyed listening to music, seeing friends and especially delighted in his grandchildren Freya and Alastair. 

Donations in his memory can be sent to the Frontotemporal Dementia Unit and Laboratory of Neuroimaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, care of: 

Bradford Dickerson, M.D.

Associate Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School

Director, Frontotemporal Dementia Unit and Laboratory of Neuroimaging, Massachusetts General Hospital

149 13th St., Suite 2691

Charlestown MA 02129 USA

617-726-5571

Local arrangements are in the care of Burpee, Carpenter & Hutchins Funeral Home, 110 Limerock Street, Rockland, ME.

 To share a memory or condolence with the Pierson family, please visit their online Book of Memories at www.bchfh.com.