Montpelier, VT Fay Webern died peacefully in hospice care on Friday, October 11th , at Woodridge Nursing Home. Fay was born on the Lower East Side of New York, the youngest of four children of Russian-Jewish immigrants. She grew up in Lavanburg Homes, founded by a German-Jewish philanthropist, Fred. L. Lavanburg, as a utopian model for public housing. As the childrens representative on their tenants coucil, she developed a deep sense of fairness and social justice. In their basement settlement house, she studied modern dance from the age of seven with a member of Hanya Holms dance company, Beatrice Baronofsky, under whose guidance the group choreographed and performed a series of "Dances of Protest." Fay took to heart the principles of modern art, which she soon extended to an understanding of jazz, painting, and literature. By the age of 13 she had her own dance troop. When an injury ended her dance career, Fay worked as a model at the Art Students League, where she met the artist William Chaiken, to whom she was married for 18 years before they divorced in 1967. She later studied acting with Ute Hagen and Michael Kahn, performing in a Broadway production of Marat-Sade, and studied mime with Mark Epstein, appearing in his beautiful production of The Mystery of Elche. Fay also had a long career in publishing and science writing, which she tended to discount as a way to pay the bills. In her first job, as secretary for a team of scientists at the Public Health Research Institute in New York City, her fearless questioning of their science as well as their grammar earned her their respect and friendship. This led to a series of jobs in which she rose from copy chief at Scientific American to editor of Harper & Row and W.H. Freeman Textbooks, science editor at Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia Brittanica Medical Yearbooks, and finally as life sciences senior editor of the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, in all of which roles she got into trouble for putting the interests of the reader above those of her employers. Retiring from publishing, Fay turned her attention to writing a literary memoir of her early life. She credits the writer Tyler C. Gore, her writing instructor at Gotham Writers Workshops, who became a dear friend, with teaching her to write in the first person. She gave many readings around New York of her work in progress. About 15 years ago, after systematically researching the best place in the world to live, Fay moved to Montpelier, where she made many fast friends and in 2016 completed her book, "The Button Thief of East 14th Street: Scenes from a Life on the Lower East Side 1927-1957." In this culminating achievement, she brings together the artistry, writing skill, and keen social insight of a lifetime. She leaves behind her daughter, MarthaLeah Chaiken, of Montpelier, VT, and many nieces and nephews and their children, whom she loved very much. Her sister, Ruth Calman, and brothers, Max and Sydney Kessler, predeceased her. A funeral service will be held for Fay at Guare & Sons Funeral home on Thursday, October 17th at 11am. The service will be led by Rabbi Shana Margolin of Beth Jacob Synagogue, followed by a graveside ceremony at Green Mount Cemetery and a receception at Beth Jacob from 1:30pm to 3:30pm. People wishing to make memorial contributions in Fays honor may do so to The Yiddish Book Center (1021 West St, Amherst, MA 01002), Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice (600 Granger Rd, Barre, VT 05641), or Fays publisher, Sagging Meniscus Press, to support the publication of "nonconformist fiction, poetry and literary nonfiction" (115 Claremont Avenue Montclair, NJ 07042).