Diane
Cushman, an intrepid traveler and devoted nurse, passed away on
January 25, 2025, leaving behind a legacy of devotion to community
and a spirit for adventure that began in her childhood in Bristol,
Vt. Diane would recount the day she boarded the Greyhound bus for
Nashville, Tenn., as the beginning of a great adventure! Leaving her
hometown behind, Diane enrolled in the nursing program at Vanderbilt
University, where she followed in her mother’s nursing footsteps.
While at Vanderbilt, Diane helped to found the Student Health
Coalition, which advocated for socially and economically
disenfranchised populations across the landscape of health care, with
social justice at the center of their advocacy. It was also at
Vanderbilt that Diane found a lifelong friend in the founder of the
Center Pole, an organization that empowers Indigenous people on the
Crow Reservation through education, entrepreneurial skills, food
sovereignty and cultural ownership. Diane was deeply proud of her
alma mater and remained connected to her friends and colleagues there
throughout her life.
Diane
lived and worked as a nurse abroad at a U.S. Army Hospital in Germany
and worked stateside in Tennessee, Michigan and North Carolina.
Chapel Hill, N.C., was an especially important place in Diane’s
life, where she and her sister, Mary, surrounded themselves with
witty and uproarious friends. Diane traveled back to North Carolina
beaches annually to reunite with this band of special people.
A
cornerstone of Diane’s legacy is her career in Vermont as a home
health pediatric nurse, serving the most vulnerable families in
Addison County. Diane worked to expand and strengthen pediatric and
maternal-child health care and ensured that children with special
needs received the care, resources and dignity they deserved. Diane
was instrumental in developing the Pediatric High-Tech Nursing
program, which allowed medically complex children and adults to
receive critical care safely at home. She was also a generous mentor
who shaped the next generation of nurses and home health
professionals with her wisdom, high standards and unshakable belief
in their potential. Diane’s legacy lives on in the countless
children, families and colleagues whose lives she changed for the
better.
Diane’s
tenacious work as a nurse enriched the lives of those around her in
numerous ways outside of direct service. Diane was a founding member
of the Vermont Global Village Project, where she co-lead study abroad
opportunities in Ghana for Vermont high school students. The VGVP
promoted personal growth and world peace through local and global
community connection. Diane was fond of saying the most important
outcome of VGVP was to observe the kids returning from their travels
as “citizens of the world.” Diane’s time with the VGVP spawned
a lifelong love affair with the country of Ghana and fostered
prevailing friendships with hundreds of peers, students and leaders.
Diane lived her values of global citizenship, traveling all over the
globe to Australia, New Zealand, Haiti, the Caribbean, Hawaii,
Botswana and all across Europe.
Diane
was a proud member of the Pocock Entertainment Committee since the
1970s. Amid this group of distinguished hooligans, you might have
seen Diane strut down the street in the annual Bristol 4th of July
Parade dressed as a cavewoman, an alien, a zebra mussel or a pirate,
often in a pair of iconic neon camouflage leggings. Her membership in
the PEC brought her immeasurable joy and, in her final days,
surrounded her with boundless love.
Diane
refused to be encumbered by illness. She served as Bristol’s town
health officer, played board games with her friends and could be
found throwing toast at a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror
Picture Show. Diane spent time visiting family across the
country, traveling to Hawaii with her son, Will, and she never missed
a Tunbridge Fair. Even when Diane was in Boston receiving radiation
treatment, she was a woman about town, visiting museums, learning
about the historic city, going to musical shows and making countless
new friends.
Diane
outlived every prediction and probability with dignity, living fully
and on her own terms until the very end. Diane was tremendously proud
of her two children, Anna and Will, and was overjoyed by the birth of
her grandson, Sebastian.
Diane
is predeceased by her parents, Elisabeth and Thomas Cushman, and her
two brothers, Thomas and Edward Cushman. She is survived by her
children, Will and Anna Smith (Ryan, Sebastian); sister, Mary
Cushman, and her two children, Douglas (Sara, Aurora) and Elisabeth
Porter (Quinn Doyle); and Anna and Will’s father, Bill Smith, and
his family. She also leaves behind her sister-in-law, Norma Cushman
(Joe, Brian, Erika, Olivia, Avery); niece Alex Harper (Jared, Evan);
Ethan Ready (Elizabeth, Abe, Louis); and many cousins.
A celebration
of Diane’s life will be held on May 17, 2025, 1 p.m., at the United
Church of Lincoln, followed by food and fellowship at Burnham Hall in
Lincoln, Vt. Diane’s family requests that you make a donation to an
organization that befits her memory. She always believed in helping
others.
This article appears in 2025 Camp Guide.