Claire White Putala, passed away on April 3, 2024, after a relatively short illness and a long and happy beautiful life.  She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, graduated Framingham High School, class of 1956, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she studied English, taking a course with the poet Ted Hughes, 1960, and took a year of graduate work in education at the University of Vermont, Burlington, in 1961.  Moving from Amherst, to rural Clinton, NY, in 1968, she oversaw the construction of a modern Acorn house, and where, in addition to her family, she kept Irish Wolfhounds, a Corgi, ducks, a rabbit and too many cats to count.

Going bravely back to school later in life, after raising her sons and becoming a literacy volunteer, she received her Ph.D. at Syracuse University in 1997, and taught as a professor of literacy education, curriculum and instruction, at the State University of New York at Oswego.  She was a gifted writer, a feminist scholar who delved into the literary history of women letter writers of the 19th Century, and a devout reader of Emily Dickinson.  With the publication of Reading and Writing Ourselves Into Being, derived from her doctoral dissertation, she became a foremost expert on Eliza Wright Osborne.

She remained active in her community of scholars and educators throughout her career and afterwards.  She held a love of nature, birding, her cats, her books, and the surroundings of her home in Oswego where she enjoyed the seasons on the frontier of Lake Ontario.   She was one to befriend students and the people she encountered on campus and in the town.   Fitting of her Irish ancestry and the work of her parents, Edward V. and Marian White, in the hospitality industry, she greatly enjoyed the restaurants of Oswego.

Her marriage to Eugene C. Putala, professor of botany at Hamilton College, ended in divorce.

She is survived by her sons Christopher (Allison), Theodore, her sister, Patrica L. White, brother in law Barry White, and her grandchildren, Caroline, and Jack.

A memorial service will take place at a later date.

Arrangements are by the Dain-Cullinan Funeral Home.