Acha (Charlotte) Mosley Lord

Acha (Charlotte) Moseley Lord

Acha Lord, of West Newbury Massachusetts, died on Thursday, March 28, 2019 from complications following an autologous bone marrow transplant to treat non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Acha was born and grew up in Baltimore.  There she attended the Calvert School and Garrison Forest.  She finished her secondary schooling at the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York (class of 1975).  In her younger years, she spent summers in the Adirondacks (hiking), and her teen summers in Quisset, Massachusetts (sailing).  She received a BA from Harvard College in English (class of 1979) and after two years of going back to Harvard to take science prerequisites, enrolled in the PhD program in Biology at Tufts University. There she received her doctorate in 1987, after submitting a dissertation on Free Amino Acid Uptake by Crepidula Fornicata Larvae.

After getting her doctorate, Acha worked for a time at the New England Aquarium, as a gallery aquarist taking care of the cold water fish and animals (her favorite of which was the Pacific red octopus).  She subsequently became a Biology teacher at the Winsor School, where she taught basic and AP Biology, Marine Biology, and in the later years of her tenure a course on Bioethics that became her favorite teaching endeavor.  In her last year of teaching (1999) the students voted her “Teacher of the Year,” an honor she deeply appreciated. 

After Acha retired from teaching, she immersed herself in a wide range of interests and activities.  She traveled extensively all over the world.  She was an accomplished fly-fisherman who learned to fly-cast at age 8 and who still has multiple IGFA World Records.  She was both skilled and lucky--she caught six billfish species on flyrod.  She was a focused gardener and landscaper with an encyclopedic knowledge of plants and plant taxonomy.  She was an accomplished potter, who honored many friends, family members, and charitable organizations with gifts of her art.  In recent years, she became interested in bird watching and bird banding, which she pursued as a volunteer at the Plum Island Banding Station.  She loved fine dining and enjoyed hosting and cooking fancy dinners.  She loved punk rock and opera.

Acha is survived by her husband of 34 years, John M. Cole, her mother Charlotte Ober Goodwin of Baltimore, brothers Mason F. Lord of Sherman, Connecticut and Hambleton D. Lord of Cambridge, sister Rebekah L. Lord of Weston, and 10 nieces and nephews scattered around the world.  She also leaves her current dog Princess Icing Bun, George the parrot, Cotton the cat, and Savannah the ball python.  She was predeceased by her father Dr. Mason F. Lord (d. 1965) and by her step-father  Charles Goodwin III (d. 2008), both of Baltimore.

There will be a memorial service this summer, the details of which are not yet finalized.