Diana Liona Newell

Diana L. Newell was born on April 30, 1930, in Brooklyn, NY., and died on September 4th, 2024 at The Blake at Baxter Village Assisted Living Facility, in Fort Mill, SC. She was a loving and beloved mother, wife, teacher, grandmother, and friend.

Diana attended Public School 173, Junior High School 49, and Thomas Jefferson High School (in Brooklyn) where she enjoyed reading, writing, math, history, and serving on the literary magazine staff. She also loved coming home with lots of books from the library.

Diana’s mother was very liberal, but her father was apolitical. During the summers, Diana worked as a governess and a drama counselor. She attended Brooklyn College tuition-free, which was offered to students who retained a high grade average through all four years of high school. She lived at home while attending college, commuting by elevated train, then subway, then walking. English was her favorite subject, and she fell in love with literature.

Diana became determined to become a teacher, following in her older sister Harriet’s footsteps.

Through a contact, she met Stewart Miller, the man who was to become her husband. He was working at a sporting goods store in Schenectady, N.Y. She found him courtly, sweet, and educated, and her mother Beatrice was crazy about him. Diana married Stewart on her college graduation day.

Diana’s first teaching job was for a third-grade class at Horace Mann School, in Schenectady, NY. 38 kids with no teaching assistant to help. It wasn’t for her, so she next went to work at Electrolux, a vacuum cleaner company, as a secretary in the billing department.

Naive about birth control, Diana was surprised one day when her doctor informed her that she was three months pregnant with her first child, Mark. Her second child, Karen, came along three years later.

Stewart was delighted to become a father – and turned out to be a great one. To earn more money, he entered New York City’s Bloomingdale’s executive training program to become an assistant buyer. The family moved to Flushing, N.Y., and then to Rochester, N.Y., where Stewart worked as a buyer of women’s furs, coats, and suits, and Diana taught English at the University of Rochester. She got her master’s degree as one of the requirements for teaching at the college.

Over the years, Diana and Stewart pursued additional job opportunities in Atlanta, Georgia; Glens Falls, N.Y.; Longmeadow, Massachusetts; Hamden, CT; and Providence, Rhode Island. In Glens Falls, Diana taught English at Queensbury High School, in Glens Falls, N.Y., and at Springfield Technical Community College, in Springfield, MA.

Stewart had inherited a heart condition from his mother, and he had several heart attacks before he died in 1990. After a year, Diana met Edward Newell through a newspaper singles ad. He was a retired attorney who loved to read and spent half the year traveling in Europe. He owned a quaint home in Ireland. She loved his worldliness, graciousness, nature exploration, spontaneity, and his love of new pursuits. And like Stewart, he was a Marine Corps veteran. Ed was part of the D-Day Invasion and involved in the Battle of Peleliu.

After marrying Ed in 1997, the two lived in Providence, Rhode Island, and then made their homes in Port St. Lucie, Florida, and finally, in Waxhaw and Charlotte, North Carolina. They also traveled extensively together throughout the world. Edward was a wonderful husband and stepfather. In fact, Diana had the talent of choosing two witty husbands who both had a great sense of humor and kept her laughing throughout their lives together.

Diana is survived by her loving children, Karen Jacobson (and Karen’s son, Matthew and her boyfriend Jacky) and Mark Miller (and his girlfriend, Elahe Borokhim), her grandchildren, Joe Miller and Susie Herrera, her great-grandchild, Bailey Herrera, her brother Arthur Stein and her sister-in-law, Ruth Stein. Also by her nephews, Kevin Koshar, Robert Koshar, and Glen Koshar.

A memorial service will be held on Thursday, September 12 at 5 p.m., in the chapel of the McEwen Funeral Home, Pineville Chapel, 10500 Park Rd., Charlotte, NC 28210. The family will warmly welcome family and friends and celebrate Diana’s life immediately following the service.

The burial will be the following day at Salisbury National Cemetery, 501 Statesville Boulevard,

Salisbury, NC 28144.

For memorial contributions, the family has designated Via Health Partners, the hospice organization that cared for Diana:

https://www.viagiving.org/one-time-giving

Online condolences may be shared at www.McEwenPinevilleChapel.com