Edward Lamperti

Edward Lamperti was born on July 26th, 1929, several months before the Great Depression began, and died on May 3rd, 2020, several months after the current pandemic started. He managed to escape unscathed by either event and by everything in between. He was the son of Louis and Maria (Piccozzi) Lamperti, who emigrated from different parts of Italy after the First World War to make a new home in Walpole, MA, where they raised a large family of six children in a small house beside the Blessed Sacrament Church on Diamond Street. Edward graduated from Walpole High School and enlisted in the military in 1947. He served in the US Air Force, repairing planes in Guam, and was honorably discharged with the rank of corporal in 1950. At the end of his service, he made a long and colorful cross-country hitch-hiking trip, part of which involved a Romani family that provided extended help and treated him as one of their own.

Back in Walpole, Edward built upon his military experience to begin work as a machinist. He cut gears for Quincy Gear and Boston Gear, and got further education in machining and mathematics at the Wentworth Institute in Boston and Brandeis University in Waltham. He married Lillian (Pechulis) in 1953 at the Blessed Sacrament Church, and with Lillian raised four children in Norwood, Walpole, and then Eastham on the Cape. Edward made a second contribution to the national defense as a machinist on the Nike missile program at Raytheon in Waltham. Growing tired of the long commutes on crowded highways and the uncertainties of employment under military contracts, Edward left the lathe to pick up a hammer and entered a new trade as a carpenter on Cape Cod. At the same time, he and Lillian became small business owners when they bought the Eagle Wing Motel, named for the famed clipper ship, in Eastham in 1963. Their timing was fortuitous: the Cape Cod National Seashore’s headquarters in Eastham would be opened in 1965. Edward became a skilled craftsman again in his new profession, building high-end homes in the firm of E. Carlton Small, based in Chatham, and with several other contractors, while Lillian managed the motel.

During this full-time employment, Edward slowly began to build his own house in Eastham. He also sandwiched in a short stint as co-owner of a gas station in South Eastham, where he had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of next-door neighbor Lawson Hayes, owner of the Pine Tree Cottages, who became a life-long friend. Edward gradually made a transition from general carpentry to specialized projects. One of the special jobs he was most proud of was his participation in the restoration of the Augustus Snow House in Harwich, a Queen Anne Victorian mansion with intricate exterior woodwork, erected about 1901. In his years as a carpenter, both under general contractors and self-employed, he taught a number of apprentices and developed lasting friendships with many of them. Long afterwards, they expressed their appreciation for his generosity and patience as an instructor and his fearlessness in tackling any task before them.

In retirement, Edward continued with small business ventures, including a hauling service involving physical labor that was daunting to men half his age. The family moved into the house he built in 1978, but finish work, repairs, and renovations continued ceaselessly through the subsequent decades. For recreation, he painstakingly rebuilt and restored to full working order a Ford Model A that had rolled off the assembly line in the year of his birth. He was in the process of reconstructing a second antique Ford when the road of life took him in a different direction.

Edward is survived by his dedicated and patient wife of 67 years, Lillian, by sons Edward of Boston and David of Eastham, daughters Teresa of Brewster and Patricia (McGuire) of Jupiter, Florida, and beloved grandchildren Morgan, Marshall, Noah, and Jessica. All will retain memories of his sharp tongue, sharp mind, hard work ethic, and often surprisingly soft sentiment, particularly for the family’s German Shepherds. Although constantly contentious and argumentative, Edward for all of his life was a craftsman and, in narrow sense and broad, a builder – a legacy that continues with his descendants.