John A. Chappell Jr.

John A. Chappell Video

John A. Chappell Jr. 78 of Hanover, MA died on December 21, 2021, after a courageous battle with cancer. He was born on May 4th 1943 in North Carolina the son of John A. Chappell Sr. and Doma E. (Rook) Chappell.

John's career as a grass roots advocate for people with disabilities began in the early 70s after starting out as an electrical engineer. He was a Co-founder of Virginia's Disability rights organization and helped to found Virginia's first independent living center in Tidewater Virginia.

As a member of the National Council on Independent Living, John was involved in everything from creating by-laws to working to help pass the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26th, 1990. He moved to Massachusetts in the late 80's to head up the newly established Independent Living Division of MRC and worked tirelessly as deputy commissioner to improve it until his retirement in 2010.

John was also a board member of the ACCD (American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities) and a founding member of the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) and its first Vice President. John spent his adult life advocating for equal rights for people with disabilities. After retiring, he continued his work by consulting and working with the Massachusetts Disability Policy Consortium as president of its Board of Directors. As a member of the Florida Institute of Technology Alumni Association, he helped to establish the New England Chapter.

True to his engineering training and seemingly boundless curiosity, John was a tinkerer, technologist and hobbyist, working on the earliest personal computers in the 80s and 90s, for weather monitoring, beta testing software and hardware and constantly looking for better ways to do home automation long before that was an established industry. His family nickname was “Inspector Gadget”.

Above all, John loved and was proud of his family and extended family. He is the son of the late John A. Chappell Sr. and Doma (Rook) Chappell. He is predeceased by his sister Elaine O'Connor and her daughter Melissa Allen. He is survived by his wife of 42 years Kathryn (Hart) Chappell as well as his wife's siblings Michael Hart, Kevin Hart and his wife Moirna O'Rourke, and Mary Crosby. John was a proud uncle to Christinia and Lee Ellett, Todd O'Connor and his wife Kim, Kage Hart and his wife Brenda, Jonathan Hart and his wife Lyndsay, Morganne and Ainslee Crosby, Kaitlyn and Emily Hart, Marie ZemlerWu and her husband Sherman. Great nephews Dale, Ranson and Ryan Allen, Elijah and Landon Ellett and Olivia Hart as well as 3 great-great nieces.

A funeral service will be held at the Sullivan Funeral Home, 551 Washington St, Rte 53 in Hanover on Wed, Dec 29 at 4PM followed by visitation until 7PM. Interment will be private.

In Lieu of Flowers, please send donations to the Disability Policy Consortium https://www.dpcma.org

John A. Chappell Video