Obituary of Peter C. Blomstrom

CHESHIRE - Peter C. Blomstrom, 77, passed away peacefully on Wednesday, May 11, 2016, as a result of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis with his family, including his wife, Nancy (Hewitt) Blomstrom, by his side. Peter was born on March 6, 1939 in Salem, MA, a son of the late Einar and Helen (Lagerquist) Blomstrom. He lived in Watch Hill, RI, and went to elementary school in Westerly. His family later moved to Cranston, RI, where he attended high school and was the president of the student council in his senior year. To his parents’ great relief, he was accepted at Clark University in Worcester, MA and to their even greater relief, he graduated with a B.A. in 1961. With the draft looming, Peter enlisted in the U.S. Army. He applied and was selected to go to Army Language School in Monterey, CA, where he studied Arabic. He then spent eighteen months in Asmara, Eritrea, where he translated written material. While he was stationed in Eritrea, he made life-long friends, urging them to join him in seeing and doing everything they could in Africa, including climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, sitting in a gorilla’s nest in Uganda, visiting an archeological site on the side of a mountain, and visiting a remote mountain-top monastery that could be reached only by being hoisted up in a basket with ropes pulled by the monks. After Eritrea, he moved to New Haven, CT, where he worked for the City of New Haven and met and married Nancy in 1967. They then moved to Brooklyn, and he obtained his Masters in Urban Planning at New York University. In 1970, he and Nancy moved to Chicago, IL, where he worked for the Illinois Housing Development Authority. From 1976 to 1989, they lived in Washington, IL, where they raised their two daughters, and he worked for the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission. While in Washington, he took his family to see every sight of remote interest within driving distance (defined as 4 days or less), was the president of the Washington Historical Society, taught courses at Bradley University, made some questionable investments in real estate and generally enjoyed life. In 1989, Peter and his family moved to Cheshire, CT and, until his retirement in 2007, he worked for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Hartford, where he focused on community development initiatives in Connecticut. He was treasurer of the Cheshire Democratic Town Committee, he was on the Board of the Cheshire Housing Authority, and he was a member of the Connecticut Dahlia Society. Some constants in Peter’s life were his love of music, from opera to jazz, his love of travel and his love of the outdoors, all of which he shared with Nancy. They enjoyed the arts, regularly visiting museums and attending concerts; they traveled in Africa, Asia, Europe, Central America and almost every state; and they visited national parks and discovered almost every walkable trail within an hour of Cheshire, stopping at every historical marker along the way. He loved his garden and over the years transformed their initially ho-hum backyard into a beautiful oasis that was even more spectacular when his gorgeous dahlias were in bloom. In addition to his wife, Nancy, Peter is survived by his daughter, Abigail Blomstrom, and her husband, Mark Manuszak, his daughter Eleanor Blomstrom, and her partner, Rafael Moquete, and his brothers, Bruce and Keith Blomstrom. He will also be missed by his grandchildren, Margaret and Theodore Blomstrom, and Astrid Moquete-Blomstrom. A memorial gathering will be held on Saturday, May 21 from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. at 390 Cedar Lane, Cheshire, CT, and interment will be at a later date at the Massachusetts National Cemetery for veterans in Bourne, MA. Gifts in memory of Peter may be made to Rails to Trails (railstotrails.org) or Doctors Without Borders (doctorswithoutborders.org).