MIDDLEBURY — Peter Carothers was born March 27, 1935, in Evanston, Ill., the only child of Ruth Tester, a Broadway song and dance comedienne, and Frederick F Carothers, a salesman. He died Oct. 19, 2026, at the age of 91, in Middlebury, Vt., at The Residence at Otter Creek.
He was a graduate of Scarsdale, N.Y., high school, class of 1953, where he held the pole vault record for most of 50 years. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1957 with a degree in Engineering, a member of Theta Delta Pi fraternity. Peter served in the U.S. Marines on active duty until 1959, primarily in Twenty-Nine Palms, Calif. After service he returned to Dartmouth to receive a joint degree from Thayer School of Engineering and Tuck School of Business.
Always a believer in the joy of travel, Peter took a job with a firm in Liberia building a railroad from the coast into the mining country. After an extensive trip around the world, he returned to New York City to begin his career as a civil engineer. While there, he met Jane McCall, the sister-in-law of a Dartmouth fraternity brother. They were married in 1965 in Clavrack, N.Y. Married life took them to Milwaukie, Ore., where their first child, Sarah Miles Carothers was born. They moved back to the East Coast, living in Scarsdale, N.Y., and West Hartford, Conn., where Anne Brandon Carothers was born.
A career move brought the family to Wellesley, Mass., in 1980. There Peter and Janie were active in the community, building a playground and coaching girls’ soccer. Janie died in 1989.
After a whirlwind courtship, Peter married Margaret Marshall Burtt, the mother of two, one of whom was a player on the soccer team Peter coached. The wedding was the weekend between Sarah’s graduation from Bates College and Anne’s graduation from Wellesley High School.
Four years later, the couple made the best decision ever. They bought the Nash Farm in New Haven, Vt., and started the “retirement” of their dreams. Here Peter could act out his passion for conservation, ecology, music and sport. While local farmers took in the hay and alfalfa and summered dry cows in the pasture, Peter had the big vegetable garden he had always wanted. Soon he offered land to the Congregational Church of Middlebury to grow vegetables for use at Community Suppers and at Charter House, a homeless shelter. He converted the heating system from oil to wood and donated the development rights to the farm to the Vermont Land Trust.
Peter was a founding member of the board of Habitat for Humanity of Addison County, he served on the board of ACORN Energy Co-op. He went twice to New Orleans and once to Rollo, Mo., on home reconstruction missions with the House Menders group from the Congregational Church. There were also reconstruction projects at Charter House that were aided by his willing hands.
For more fun, he played tennis, paddle tennis and squash, skied and hiked in the Green Mountains, and swam laps in the New Haven River with his dog. Neither wore a suit.
Peter’s abiding love for singing brought him to the Congregational Church choir and to the Middlebury College and Community Chorus. His first tenor voice also got him a brief role in a chorus in Tosca at the Town Hall Theatre.
Through it all his sly wit shone through the twinkle in his eyes.
Peter Carothers is survived by his wife, Margaret “Muffin”; his daughters, Sarah Carothers and Robert Al-Chokhachy, and Anne Carothers Woodward and Whitney Woodward; his stepchildren, Andy Burtt and Megan Szabo, and Laura Burtt Hetherington and Ian Hetherington; as well as grandchildren Miles and Lucy Al-Chokhachy, Ayla Hetherington and Megan Szabo’s son Ben Koh.
A memorial service will be held at the Congregational Church of Middlebury at 10 a.m. Dec. 5, 2026. In lieu of flowers, gifts to Habitat for Humanity of Addison County, PO Box 1217, Middlebury, Vt., 05753; or the Congregational Church of Middlebury, Capital Campaign, 30 N. Pleasant St, Middlebury, Vt., 05753, would be appreciated. ◊
Photo by James Blair
