Maria Paula Viterbo de Sousa Azevedo, aka Paula Viterbo, age 66, of Harrisonburg, VA (though she would have said "in but not of"), passed away on Saturday, January 25, 2025. Paula was born in Lisbon, Portugal, to Maria Carolina de Carvalho Viterbo de Sousa Azevedo and Joaquim António Queirós de Sousa Azevedo.
Paula led an itinerant life. She grew up in Africa, in Mozambique and Angola, experiencing her formative years in Luanda, Angola. Her family left the country amid revolution and civil war; the experience of violence left a lasting impression on her. In Portugal, she studied biology, had a daughter, and then followed her first husband, Pedro Silva, to Stony Brook, NY, where she obtained a PhD in the History of Science and Medicine, with a dissertation about the discovery of time of ovulation in women and the development of the “rhythm method” of birth control in the 1930s. After postdocs at George Washington University and Bryn Mawr College and shorter stays in Germany and Lumberton, NC (which she appreciated for the “Blue Velvet” connection), she moved with her second husband, Andreas Broscheid, to Virginia, where she worked in the Thomas Jefferson Papers at Monticello until her retirement in 2021.
Paula was small in stature and big in personality. She was generous and iron-willed. A force of nature, a brilliant scholar, and a critical voice. She would find the holes in your argument. She would take a historical document everyone else thought was gibberish and discover that it was an interesting letter about Lucretius. She loved the ocean, coffee, arroz doce, Aerosmith and David Bowie, the poetry of Jorge de Sena, New York City, strolls through Chelsea galleries, Wim Wenders movies, and Mozart, especially when played by Alfred Brendel. She loved her daughter and adored her grandkids. You would run into her at Three Notch'd Road concerts. She did not suffer fools gladly. A lifelong dancer, she enjoyed participating in JMU's Dance for Parkinson's project, until her spreading ovarian cancer made this impossible in her last weeks (get yourself checked out if you have ovaries; this cancer is really no good!).
She will be sorely missed by her husband Andreas, daughter Joana, with son-in-law Florent, grandchildren Gaia and Luka, friends Kate Trammell, Chip Brown, and Rob Alexander, brothers Luís Miguel and Antonio Pedro Viterbo, sister-in-law Isabel Cortez, nephews Francisco and João Cortez, and further cousins, uncles, aunts, in-laws, colleagues, friends, and family on four continents.
The family thanks the cancer teams at UVa (especially Dr. Duska) and RMH (especially Dr. Lin) for the good care with which they supported Paula through her illness. There were too many nurses to name individually; they did amazing work and deserve a special shoutout.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks you to go out for a nice meal and donate to JMU’s Dance for Parkinson’s program (contact Kate Trammell at [email protected] for more details), the American Parkinson Disease Association, or the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance.
Those who wish to celebrate and remember Paula's life are invited to join family and friends on Monday, February 3 (Paula’s birthday), 4:30-6 PM, at Pale Fire Brewing Company in Harrisonburg, or for a celebration of life on Wednesday, February 5, at 5 PM, at Lindsey Funeral Homes, Harrisonburg.
Condolences and fond memories may be sent to the family by visiting www.lindseyfuneralhomes.com.
