Sheila Payne

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution announces with great sorrow the death of retiree Sheila Payne on September 27, 2023.  She was 87.

Sheila was the daughter of Ethel Chapman Tulk and Alfred James Tulk, a mural artist, and grew up in Stamford, CT. She graduated from Bates College with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology. She got married and moved to Maryland where her husband started graduate school while she earned her teaching certificate to teach first grade.

In 1963, they moved to Falmouth and proceeded to have two daughters, Heather and Stephanie, and made it their permanent home. They were married until 1987 when they parted ways.

Her creative side revealed itself through art, music, and dance and she especially loved bringing people together. She helped organize many events that continue today including folk dancing, the Woods Hole May Festival, various art festivals, and more. She was a batik artist who showed her batiks at many art fairs and markets over the years. She was a member of the Geotones, a singing group who performed songs from the 1950’s, as well as being a member of an interfaith choir and a lover of shape note singing. She also helped organize “Christmas Revels” musical celebrations.

She was a visionary who knew how to bring a community together. Long before the days of food trucks, she and a friend started a bag lunch business in Woods Hole, becoming the first person to ever receive a peddler’s license in Falmouth! In order to expand this lunch business to provide food to more people, she began working at WHOI in 1972 as a cook/hostess where she helped WHOI convert a de-sanctified Methodist Church into a lunchroom and community space, and thus was born the Endeavor House. When the WHOI Quissett Campus was formed, the successful lunch business she had created led to the opening of the Buttery. She ran the much-loved Buttery until her retirement in 2002. She continued working at WHOI on a casual basis until 2004.

In her spare time, she created the Friendly Visitors program to provide conversation and companionship to local Falmouth seniors. She managed over 50 volunteers, pairing them with seniors who wanted a visitor. This was a precursor to what is, today, Neighborhood Falmouth. In her retirement, she worked at a nursery school, taught workshops on how to build fairy houses, and arranged fairy tea parties. Her fairy houses were often part of the annual Fairy Houses of Beebe Woods at Highfield Hall.

Her love of music, art, dance, and nature was never more evident than at her solstice gatherings. For over 40 years, she hosted these gatherings to bring people together to celebrate through song and dance. Her legacy is broad and eternal. Her passionate love for creating community took her on many interesting adventures that touched many lives.

She is survived by her beloved grandson, Justin Rivera and her two daughters: Heather Payne and husband Scott Mello, and Stephanie Rivera and husband Robert Rivera, as well as countless people who keep her in their memories.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to her favorite organization, The Nature Conservancy. A celebration of life will be held on November 18 from 2-4 p.m. at the Woods Hole Community Hall, 68 Water Street, Woods Hole, MA.

Information for this obituary is from the Chapman Funerals & Cremations website