Alice Dudley Carmel, 76, died peacefully in her sleep in the early hours of Saturday, February 19, 2022. After years spent living with congestive heart failure and a number of other complicating conditions, Alice spent her final days at the Elizabeth Seton Residence in Wellesley, MA, in the company of her only child, Genevieve Carmel (Gen) of Jamaica Plain, MA. They listened to an array of beloved music from the Beatles and Stevie Wonder, to Toto Bissainthe and Bach, and to the writings of the late Thich Nhat Hanh. Born Alice Elizabeth Dudley on July 17, 1945, in Cleveland, OH, to Winston Mansfield Dudley, a professor of mechanical engineering, and Charlotte Mae (Wheaton) Dudley Wells, a writer with an English degree from Wellesley, she was the youngest of three children, including brother, Richard and sister, Edith. Alice grew up in an academically-inclined household surrounded by elders who introduced her to the joys of learning and of blueberry pie from an early age. One summer at the family camp on Little Squam Lake in Ashland, NH, Alice was found on the lakefront deck of the house enjoying a recently-baked blueberry pie with the help of a toy sand shovel. In 1947, the family relocated to Flossmoor, IL, a suburb of Chicago. After the death of Alice's grandfather, her grandmother Lila McGaughan Dudley – or "G-ma" as she was known – also moved in. G-ma contributed to Alice's lifelong interests in family history, poetry and music, bringing with her a Steinway grand piano, on which the children first learned to play. Like her two older siblings, Alice attended public schools where she excelled in her classes. When the brand-new Homewood-Flossmoor High School opened in 1959, she formed lifelong bonds there with close friends including Barry Berg, Patricia Deller, South African exchange student Veronica Kruger, and teacher Charlotte Woodruff Reavis. Alice graduated from high school in 1963 and enrolled at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, MA, which at the time was still a separate women's college affiliated with Harvard University. One of the most memorable moments during her first semester was walking past the Harvard Coop Bookstore to discover a crowd of people that had gathered around the window display, watching a television broadcast the news that President John F. Kennedy had just been assassinated. During the summer of 1964, Alice began volunteering through Harvard's Phillips Brooks House Association with the Wellmet Project, a non-profit that provided group transitional housing and mental health resources for residents as an alternative approach to the state mental hospital system. This was where she first met her future partner and husband Charles Edward "Ed" Carmel, who was visiting his mother Jean Carmel, the Executive Director of Wellmet. Alice would go on to serve as a cook, "house mother" for one of the houses, and on the board of Wellmet, forming a number of lasting memories and friendships there, including with one of her closest friends Lenore Tenenblatt. After graduating from Radcliffe in May 1967 with a Bachelor's Degree in Experimental Psychology, Alice spent her first four years out of college working for the Jimmy Fund in Boston as a laboratory technician under the direction of Dr. Samuel S. Epstein in the Laboratory of Environmental Carcinogenesis. There she tested various food additives, pollutants, and prescription drugs for their risk of causing cancer and gene mutations. In July 1968, she and Ed married in a small ceremony at the First Parish Waltham Unitarian Church. With the help of their families, they bought their first home a few years later at 10 Beachway West in East Sandwich on Cape Cod. There they hosted friends and family, including their young nieces and nephew, who grew up with fond memories of holidays spent baking cookies in their beachside home. Alice's father Winston also spent some of his final days with Alice and Ed on Cape Cod before he passed away in 1973. From 1971 to 1982, Alice continued her work in cancer research, commuting into Boston to work as a technician for a lab at Boston Children's Hospital, where she tested radiopharmaceuticals as scanning agents and therapies for cancer. In the mid-1980s, Alice and Ed separated, though they remained legally married and on friendly terms. During this time, Alice began practicing Buddhism, finding a new spiritual grounding and a community of like-minded people in the Boston area. In the winter of 1984-5, Alice went to a potluck dinner on Cape Cod. There she met Jean-Claude Garoute, an artist visiting from Haiti who went by the name Tiga. Tiga's stories about his past work, particularly his involvement with the Saint Soleil art movement in Haiti, sparked interest in many of the attendees, including Alice. Tiga offered to lead a vocal drumming workshop for the group in Haitian Creole, with themes and music grounded in the folklore of Haitian vodou, the syncretic religion connecting Haitians to their African and Indigenous roots. The group arranged to meet on a regular basis in the basement of the First Parish Brewster Unitarian Church, and they met throughout the summer of 1985, until Tiga returned to Haiti. One of the traditional Haitian songs that Alice most fondly remembered learning from Tiga that summer was Papa Loko. For Alice, that summer marked a new direction in her life. After participating in the vocal drumming series with Tiga, she became deeply interested in following Haitian culture and politics, began studying Haitian Creole, and stayed in touch with Tiga by mail after he had returned to Haiti. They exchanged letters about how she could aid his efforts to set up a children's art program there. She lent her help to fundraise for and promote Tiga's projects in the U.S., writing letters on his behalf to potential donors and partner organizations. Alice visited Tiga in Haiti in the summer of 1986, amidst hopes of a brighter and more peaceful era for the country following the recent departure of dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier. Back in Boston, Alice continued to lend her support to Tiga during the release of Haitian musician Carole Demesmin's album Lawouze, for which Tiga had written lyrics for several songs. In 1988, Alice and Tiga became parents to a daughter, Genevieve. Alice raised their daughter as a single mother, primarily in Cambridge, MA, with the love and support of her family. Though Tiga and Alice did not remain together, Tiga's three adult children from his previous marriage lovingly welcomed their new baby half-sister, as did their mother. Alice's former partner, Ed Carmel, was also thrilled to hear that Alice would become a mother, inviting Alice to use his new home on Cape Cod as the location for the first of many gatherings between Gen and her two half-sisters, Pascal and Michele, who lived in New York and had children of their own around Gen's age. From the mid-1980s through 2013, Alice worked at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School's Department of Nuclear Medicine as laboratory manager. She was responsible for managing research grants, submitting visa applications for incoming international members of the lab, training new staff members, and many other technical and administrative duties in support of the lab's research goals. Throughout this time, Alice was a devoted and loving mother to Gen, creating a stable and stimulating home environment. In Gen's first years, Alice moved into an apartment shared with her mother, Charlotte, who had recently lost her second husband. Alice and Gen lived for most of Gen's childhood on the first floor of a duplex on Belmont Street in Cambridge, owned by a colleague of Alice's who lived on the second floor. Gen remembers their home as an eclectic and book-filled one-bedroom with four cats, an electric piano, a child's swing that Alice had attached to the top of Gen's doorway, and a couple of murals that Alice had spontaneously painted on the walls. After Alice retired in 2014, she relocated from the Boston area to Assonet, MA, where she said she'd found her "little log cabin in the woods" as a more quiet and remote locale, writing incipiagram poems over her morning coffee – a lifelong practice – and making new friends there through the local Buddhist community. When she was still well enough to travel, Alice was able to join Gen on two memorable trips to Hawaii and Australia. Toward the end of her stay in Assonet, she took care of a litter of kittens born underneath her porch, feeding them and connecting them with a local cat rescue non-profit to find adoptive homes for them. In 2019, Alice moved into the Goddard House Assisted Living Facility in Brookline, MA, though she soon found she needed a higher level of care, and she relocated to the Elizabeth Seton Residence, a nursing home overlooking a nature preserve in Wellesley, MA. While living at Elizabeth Seton during the COVID-19 pandemic, Alice's daughter Gen and her partner Stefan made many window visits to her, and Alice formed a strong bond with the nursing assistants, a visiting compassionate care companion, and other staff members who cared for her. This helped her immensely during a time when her family and friends could not visit with her indoors. While in her room, she created dozens of watercolor paintings, penned many new poems, and took an interest in learning more about her caregivers' lives. The Elizabeth Seton staff knew Alice for her fascinating stories, her sharp intellect, her quirky sense of humor, her easy-going personality, her interest in art and poetry, and her knowledge of Haitian history and culture, among the many other topics that interested her. After vaccinations became available in 2021, family and friends once again could visit with Alice indoors. Gen and Stefan spent many joyful occasions visiting with her in her final months. During her last year, some of Alice's favorite activities were to catch up with friends and family members, write poems, take part in group activities, play improvised melodies on a small electric piano, and listen to music of all kinds. She also listened to Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass and Thich Nhat Hanh's The Art of Transforming Suffering, read to her by Gen. Gen and a local massage therapist gave her foot and neck massages. She also enjoyed having a piece of chocolate every night after dinner. On her final evening, February 18, Gen visited Alice at dinnertime and they exchanged news about how their days had gone. Gen gave her a massage, and asked if she'd like to listen to music while she was falling asleep. Alice asked to listen to Pablo Casals' rendition of Bach's Cello Suites. Alice and Gen embraced and expressed their love for one another before Gen went home. A few hours later, Alice departed this life just as gently, lovingly, and peacefully as she had lived it. Alice is survived by her daughter Genevieve Marie Carmel and Gen's partner, Stefan Grabowski, as well as by her sister Edith Dudley Sylla and brother-in-law Richard Sylla of Hopkinton, NH, sister-in-law Liza Martin of Newton, MA, brother-in-law George Steven Carmel (spouse Deborah Carmel) of Sandwich, MA, nieces Anne Sylla of Raleigh, NC (spouse Bob Strauss), Peggy Padua of Seattle, WA (spouse Percy Padua), Mary Carmel of Vineyard Haven, MA, nephew Ira Carmel (partner Lisa Onomoto) of Nashville, TN, her daughter's half-sisters Pascal Garoute (spouse Charles Fields) of Port Saint Lucie, FL, Michele Michel (spouse Darcel Michel) of Washington Heights, NY, and Gen's half-brother Tony Garoute (spouse Michele Garoute) of Lawton Oklahoma, and their families. Alice is a grandaunt to her sister Edith's six grandchildren Sunny Sompalli, Charlotte Strauss, Matthew Strauss, Leo Padua, Meryl Padua, and Fenno Padua. She is also an extended family member of her daughter's nieces and nephews and their children. A small outdoor memorial and burial service will take place in the spring at Mount Auburn Cemetery, where Alice's older brother, Richard, is already interred, and where her ashes will be laid to rest alongside the ashes of her late husband Charles Edward Carmel. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to one of these three suggested organizations: 1. Donations to "Elizabeth Seton Residence - Employee Fund" can be sent by mail to Elizabeth Seton Residence, 125 Oakland Street, Wellesley MA 02481, or can be made online at www.elizabethseton.org/donate/ 2. Renaissance Jacmelienne de New York, Inc. (RJNY, Inc.) - http://www.rjny.org/needs.php 3. Partners in Health - https://www.pih.org/