Kemble Widmer, II

Kemble Widmer II, age 85, of Newburyport, MA, passed away on Sunday the 12th of April, surrounded by his loving family.  Kem was born on February 7, 1941 in Trenton, NJ, to Dr. Kemble Widmer and Virginia “Ginny” Maiers.  After spending most of his childhood in Pennington, NJ, Kem, an Eagle Scout, attended the Fishburne Military School in Waynesboro, VA, where he was class valedictorian.  He was a duel degree graduate of Lehigh University, with Bachelor’s (1963) and Master’s (1965) degrees in Industrial Engineering.  After serving as a Captain Company Commander in the United States Army, he began his career with Warner & Swasey Company in King of Prussia, PA, and later moved to Gastonia, NC, where he founded and served as CEO of H&W Turbo Conveyor, growing the company 40 fold and employing hundreds in the Gastonia area.  He is the third generation of patent owners in the Widmer/Maiers family.  In Gaston County, he was active in the United Way and championed many local causes.

Kem had a passion for restoring old things to their original beauty, whether it was a 1964 GTO or a 1798 condemned house in Salem, MA, which he transported to Gastonia and rebuilt, or the 1797 Federal house in Newburyport, MA, which he painstakingly restored over a twelve year period after retiring to this coastal city.  While serving in England during the Vietnam War, his commanding officer had asked Kem to “find a grandfather clock for my wife.”  That directive sparked Kem’s passion for researching, authenticating and collecting early furniture.  His sleuthing skills, together with his engineer’s embrace of meticulous detail and exacting record keeping, helped this devoted, always-curious, history-loving layman become a leading scholar in the forensic study of early cabinetmakers of the Massachusetts North Shore.  His scholarship has been published in a number of path-breaking articles including, most recently, with Brock Jobe, “William King and a Century of Misattributions,” American Furniture (2024).  In 2014, in collaboration with the Peabody Essex Museum, he co-wrote the award-winning book, In Plain Sight, Discovering the Furniture of Nathaniel Gould, which accompanied the museum exhibition of that title.  Kem had four or five additional articles he hoped to write.  Although we will rue the void of those unwritten articles, his voluminous notes, drawings and photographs have been promised to the Winterthur Library that other scholars might benefit from his years of study and observation.

A Life Master in contract bridge, he had many passions including collecting, fly fishing, drag racing, the New York “Football” Giants, steam railroads, and cycling with his devoted cadre of fellow cyclists.

Kem loved his quarter century in Newburyport, and was generous with his time, enthusiasm, wisdom and support to numerous organizations including The First Religious Society, Historic New England, The Newburyport Preservation Trust, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the North Shore Model Railroad Club. 

He is survived by his wife Betsy Garrett Widmer of Newburyport, his sister Kay Widmer of Titusville, NJ, his children from his first marriage, Lisa (Doug) Widmer Granat of Niwot, CO, and Kemble (Meriska) Widmer III of Crested Butte, CO, his grandchildren Kelley Granat of Bath, England, Elena Granat of New York, NY, and Rowan Granat of Miami, FL.  Additionally he leaves his stepchildren, Abigail (Matt) Garrett Looft, Maria (Miguel) Garrett de Lievano, Nathaniel (Michelle) Garrett, and six step grandchildren:  Ella Garrett, Lincoln Garrett, Walker Garrett, Sascha Lievano, Alden Looft and Caleb Looft.

Kem was an energetic, doing and giving man.  He heralded every morning with the sunny dispatch that he had “places to go, people to see, things to do, and I’m late!”  Kem Widmer was probably never late in his life, but he did have places to go, people to see, and things to do.  We are all the better for it.

Donations in memory of Kemble Widmer may be made to a nonprofit he loved: The Collections Care Fund of the Museum of Old Newbury, 98 High Street, Newburyport, MA 01950, attn. Bethany Groff; The Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, East India Square, 161 Essex Street, Salem, MA 01970, attn. Daniel Lipcan; or Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library to support the Winterthur Library Decorative Arts Photographic Collection and Digital Humanities, Winterthur Museum, 5105 Kennett Pike, Wilmington, Delaware, 19735, attn. Brandy Watts. 

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