James Brown Corsiglia
James Brown Corsiglia, Jr., a longtime resident of Groton, died at age 72 in Princeton, NJ on Saturday, December 21, 2024 as a result of a rare cancer with which he’d been diagnosed in May.
Eldest son of James and Harriet Corsiglia, Jamie grew up in North Ashburnham. He was particular about the ‘North’ designation. While Ashburnham has always been a town of very modest size, those who have lived there for any period of time know that such geographic distinctions matter, especially if they were born into families residing there for three generations, as was Jamie’s. He and his four siblings (Catherine of La Grange, IL; Anne (Joel) of Boca Raton, FL; Christina (Michael) of Princeton, NJ; and Andrew of Ashburnham) were raised on what Jamie always referred to as ‘the farm’, in a 19th century house on a property whose distinguishing feature was its three barns set amidst a bucolic parcel of New England land with open fields, the vestiges of an apple orchard, and a pine grove as well as immense vegetable and extensive flower gardens, all of which were formative to Jamie’s lifelong interest in horticulture, the landscape, and wildlife.
After a youth spent building vertigo-inducing ski jumps in the woods, bonfires in the fields (where his formation as a life-long pyromaniac was born) and driving his elementary school teachers to distraction with his restlessness (one noting presciently that he was “a clever little boy and a lively one, too. Once in a while, he gets talkative with his neighbors...”). Jamie moved on to study landscape architecture at UMass Amherst, followed by a master’s degree in urban planning at Penn State. He then returned to Massachusetts where he worked for the Rural Housing Improvement agency, the Nashua River Watershed Association and then, in a series of positions on the North Shore for the city of Lynn, for David Hark Associates and for Hirsch Construction Corporation.
Jamie’s professional life, however, was always ancillary to his outdoor pursuits, especially his athletic endeavors (particularly skiing, cycling, wind surfing and running). To say that he was an accomplished skier would be a considerable understatement. Other than a taste for haute ski equipment, custom-made bicycles, authentic Shetland Islands sweaters from the wool of pedigreed sheep and imported paints and watercolor papers, material possessions were of little interest to him. With one notable exception. His home in Groton was filled with Shaker-inspired furniture of a very high order, all of which he made from what he referred to as ‘sacred wood’ painstakingly sourced from throughout New England and the mid-Atlantic.
His abiding interest in the natural world included an unusually avid attentiveness to the weather--its history, its patterns and its daily trajectory--no matter where he was. Jamie devoured those detailed 'forecast discussions' and 'advanced hydrologic predictions' on the NOAA website, incomprehensible to most laymen, the way some read baseball stats in the morning paper. Of special note was his lifelong fascination with snow. No matter how little of it had fallen, he'd have something to say about its overall quality, its texture, its weight, its water content, its chances of survival, and most importantly, its prospects for skiing. He also possessed a deep knowledge of New England topography and geography. He not only knew the name of every stream and river in a large swath of the region but also could cite the source and tributaries of most of them, to say nothing of the mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont, many of which he had either climbed or skied.
A gifted writer, Jamie was well-known for his beautifully composed letters, which were customarily enclosed in hand-painted envelopes that also included poetry, dried flora and, if you were particularly fortunate, a small watercolor. Another favored form of communication was the telephone message, which he made into an art form all his own. Many members of his family and his close circle of friends would purposely not answer if they noticed Jamie’s number appear as they’d then miss his diatribe on some topic he deemed of interest on that particular occasion. These could go on at some length, often embellished by impersonations thanks to his remarkable ability as a mimic. If his commentary proved too long-winded for your answering service and it hung up on him, he’d simply call back and continue where he’d left off.
Because of his extraordinary sense of humor, his bonhomie and loquaciousness, and his abilities as a raconteur--not to mention his tendency to verbosity--those who didn’t know him often judged him a character or a crank or simply a chatterbox. But if you had the patience and took the time to get to know him, you discovered an extremely serious, highly intelligent (albeit idiosyncratic) and thoughtful man who had a lot to say on pretty much any given topic.
And anyone who knew him even remotely well and participated in any aspect of his life came to recognize one abiding truth about Jamie--he was, without fail, always late.
Seldom has a person made their departure under more auspicious and appropriate circumstances than those that aligned on the evening of December 21. First and foremost, it was the winter solstice, a day of transition to a season Jamie revered and one he always marked; there was abundant fresh snow on the ground and the trees; it was bitter cold with a clear sky full of stars, and a waning moon offered the perfect degree of illumination to send him off to be part of the natural world where his soul has always resided.
A memorial celebration in Jamie’s honor will be held this spring, which will be announced closer to the date.