Peter Eino Natti Obituary
Friends and family across Massachusetts and beyond are mourning the loss of an.
Extraordinary person and talent. Peter Eino Natti of Gloucester, MA, died on May 26, 2023.
Peter lived his life fully and generously, both despite and because of a life-changing injury from a devastating car accident in 1973 which left him a quadriplegic.
The summer before his 1968 graduation from Gloucester High School he attended the Northwest Outward Bound School in the Cascade Mountains in Oregon. He later said that the challenges he met while at the school developed resources within him that proved to be pivotal later in self-reliance and in calling on his inner strengths. At Gloucester High School, he had an impressive athletic career in football and track and field. He held the discus record from 1967 into the 1990's and the shotput record until 2002. He was voted into the GHS Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994. After a year at Cushing Academy post-GHS, he attended UMass Amherst where he excelled in his freshman year in track, in javelin, the hammer throw and the discus. He was described by his UMass coach as "the best all-around athlete on the team". His athleticism and physical strength surely played a part in the long months of recovery after his accident.
In 1975 he moved to a communal farm in Montague, MA and was an important and integral part of that extended family for almost twenty years. There he found new purpose in his life, putting his creative talents to woodworking, furniture building, and creating stained glass and ceramics. He was a member of the Clamshell Alliance, and in 1976 was arrested along with 179 others in an early civil disobedience action to prevent construction of the Seabrook nuclear plant. In the mid 1990's he returned to Gloucester, moving into an addition to the family home. He was a "people magnet", loved by many for his humor, his cheerfulness, his generosity, and his passionate love of life. He found joy in the every day.
He and his dear friend Harry Millar oversaw a comprehensive renovation of the Natti family home in 2008-2011. They made it a happy project for everyone involved. His knowledge of all things mechanical and building-related was encyclopedic.
There was no big machine he didn't love, and he shared the use of a portable saw mill. When the Lanes Cove Fish shack was rehabbed, it was Peter who cut and donated the boards for the floor; similarly, he donated wood to the rehabilitation of the Virginia Lee Burton Writing Shack at the Lanesville Community Center. For years, he presided over the family sauna, opening it to friends and family in the tradition of his father Robert Natti.
He lived for almost 50 years coping with the effects of a traumatic injury and kept his eyes always focused forward; he often spoke about taking things "one day at a time". He didn't rail about the hand he'd been dealt but lived a fully engaged life.
He was predeceased by his parents, Robert H. Natti and Mary Lee (Kingman) Natti. He is survived by his loving companion of thirty-three years, Lauri Fielding; by his sister Susanna Natti and brother-in-law Alan Willsky; by two nieces, Lydia (Willsky) Ciollo and Kate Willsky and their husbands Joseph Ciollo and Michael Portanova; by three grand-nieces, Rose and Eva Ciollo, and Audrey Portanova; by many cousins; and by many dear friends, some of whom he considered his second family.
Arrangements for a remembrance will be made at a future date. Those wishing to donate to a charitable organization in his memory might consider SCI Boston, an organization devoted to spinal cord injury (https://www.sciboston.org) or Cape Ann Animal Aid (https://www.capeannanimalaid.org). Arrangements are by the Greely Funeral Home, 212 Washington St. Gloucester.
