Former Provincetown resident Robert D. Speiser died in Amherst on Oct. 3, 2024 after suffering a stroke. He was 71.
The son of Marvin and Laura Greene Speiser, Robert was born in Decatur, Ala. on June 6, 1953. His family moved back to New York City, where Robert attended PS 6 on the Upper East Side and the Horace Mann School in the Bronx. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in literature, and received J.D. and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Chicago.
After a brief career in corporate law, Robert became vice president at Health-Chem Corp., where he and his team created transdermal patches for administering medications. He later was CEO of Union Broach, where he and his team developed and received patents on several dental tools and instruments.
His husband, Tony Brackett, said that Robert left the corporate world, probably in the late 1990s, to become a New York City teaching fellow at a time when the public schools were hurting for teachers. Robert taught at CIS 303, a middle school in the South Bronx, specializing in math and social studies. It was during his tenure as a teacher that he created a foundation, Cultural Connections Curriculum, that organized student trips to see art correlated with their classroom curriculums.
“He was an art enthusiast and collector,” said Tony. “The thing that he enjoyed most and was most proud of was taking kids to museums.” Robert especially liked working with recently arrived immigrants.
After leaving CIS 303, Robert continued taking schoolchildren to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Morgan Library and Museum. At the Morgan, he developed a program where students created their own paint from ground lapis, cochineal beetles, grass, chalk, and saffron and guided students in making illuminated manuscripts using gold leaf.
He also took students from the Music Advancement Program at the Juilliard School to the Museum of Television and Radio, where they created their own sound effects and selected classical works to accompany old radio and TV shows.
After moving from Manhattan to Provincetown in 2011, Robert got involved in the public schools and was a member of the cultural council, scholarship committees, the AIDS Memorial Committee, and the charter revision committee. He was proud that his house and gardens at 8 Cottage St. was included in the Provincetown Art Association and Museum’s annual garden tour.
Robert and his family moved in 2018 to Amherst, where they bought the Henry Hills House, renovated it, and created a series of gardens primarily focused on trees.
Robert is survived by his husband and partner of 22 years, Tony Brackett; his teenage twins, Margaret Speiser and Henry Speiser; family member Rosalie Gonzales; and their dog, Flomax, all of Amherst.
