Delia Inglehart Briggs

Delia Inglehart Briggs, 94, born and raised in Watertown, died Sunday, January 29, 2012, at her home in Duxbury, Mass, after a short illness. She had resided in Duxbury since 1997 and prior to that, in Concord and Plymouth, Mass.

Born July 1st, 1917, Delia was the eldest child of George Gifford Inglehart, Vice-President of the Agricultural Insurance Company, and Rhea Grems Inglehart, both of Watertown. Delia attended Watertown High School and was graduated from Smith College (1939), with a BA in French. She took her junior year abroad in Paris at the Sorbonne and, on a summer trip to Berlin, met her future husband, John DeQuedville Briggs, Jr. (Harvard College, BA, 1932). They were wed in Watertown in July of 1939. After a honeymoon trip around South America, the newlyweds made their home in Concord, Massachusetts where Mr. Briggs was on the faculty at Middlesex School. In 1957, Mrs. Briggs joined the staff of Brooks School to teach Third Grade, and later served as Assistant Headmistress. Retiring in 1976, the Briggses moved to their lakeside home in Plymouth, Mass, and she became active in various art and historical societies and in the local Garden Club (her flower arrangements won many prizes).

In 1997, after three years of widowhood, Mrs. Briggs moved to a retirement community in Duxbury, Mass, where for more than a decade she served as librarian. A whiz at word games, she could dispatch the New York Times Sunday crosswords puzzle in hours and delighted in finding long words on the Boggle board. She was also a serious reader, an accomplished bridge player, a lover of classical music, a magician with house plants, and beloved mentor to all her progeny.

She is survived by two children and their spouses, Henrietta Cosentino and her husband Donald [Cosentino], of Los Angeles, California, and John DeQuedville Briggs, III and his wife Leslie [Briggs], of Easton, Maryland; and by three grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren who live variously in Chicago, Illinois, San Diego, California, and Istanbul, Turkey. Her brother, former Supreme Court Judge George G. Inglehart, died in 2005, but Delia is survived by her sister, Georgia [Inglehart] Borden Cox, and her husband Robert Cox (also a Watertown native) who divide the year between Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and Chaumont, New York.