Michele Claire Lucas

Michele Lucas, 1937–2024

Novelist Michele Claire Lucas of Port Chester, NY, died on April 30 in Newton, MA, of complications from breast cancer in a place decidedly “not her home.” She was 86.
The only child of Fred and Claire Lucas, Michele was raised in Rye, NY. She attended Emma Willard School and Smith College (Class of ’59). Not much inspired by academic pursuits, her father “bribed” her into getting a college degree with the promise of travel after graduation. She landed in Paris, France, where she met the love of her life, Marcel Wittenberg, and although they parted ways due to his enlistment in the French military, they stayed in touch until his death in 2020. Returning to New York, Michele met Arthur Benis, who had coincidently grown up in Rye too. A seemingly ideal match, they wed in 1962. Although it afforded her the opportunity to live abroad and travel, the marriage was not a good one. Upon their divorce in the mid-’70s, Michele returned to Rye from Hong Kong, where they were living at the time, with their young daughter in tow. Now a single parent, she took a job as a photo editor at Time Life, Inc. in Manhattan, where she worked at various publications including Time, People, and Sports Illustrated for more than a decade. She found herself an ardent feminist in a male-dominated workplace; a staunch Democrat in a sea of Republicans; and a passionate Red Sox fan in a glut of Yankees supporters (having learned baseball at the knees of her Massachusetts-born maternal grandparents). Michele ultimately retired from Time Life in the late ’80s to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. Channeling her obsession for all things related to World War II and the Holocaust, she centered her one published novel, A High and Hidden Place (Harper San Francisco, 2005), on a real-life event in Oradour-sur-Glane, France, where Nazi troops massacred the entire village of non-combatant men, women, and children in June 1944. The book explores the precariousness of faith in the face of evil. After a brief stint in West Palm Beach, FL, cut short by her dislike of its lightening, alligators, and politics, Michele settled in a small house in Port Chester, NY, where she lived happily writing for almost 30 years. While she relished her quiet, solitary existence at home, Michele’s love for travel took her all around the world—from the Ayurvedic hospitals of India and the breathtaking Great Wall of China to the peaceful savannahs of Africa and the bustling marketplaces of Turkey. But she was never more content than in the cozy den of her house in Port Chester or on the windswept deck of her home-away-from-home on Cape Cod. In 2019, Michele suffered a serious stroke, from which she was not expected to recover. All the dire predictions were wrong, but her condition necessitated moving closer to her family in Massachusetts, where she survived the COVID pandemic as well. Despite her antipathy for assisted living, Michele found joy in her nightly Tito’s martini, a Stockyard Restaurant filet mignon, reruns of Raymond Burr’s Perry Mason, and updates from her only grandchild, the light of her life.
Michele is survived by her daughter, Alexandra Molloy, and husband, James Molloy, of Brookline, MA; her grandson, Owen Molloy; her cousin, Kurt Langenhahn, of Los Angeles, CA; and her dearest friends, Jill Harrold (Emma Willard), of West Palm Beach, FL, Aggie Benis (sister-“out-law”) of Rye, NY, and Peggy Daniel (Smith) of New York, NY.

A small memorial service for family and close friends will take place on May 15 at Lehman, Reen & McNamara Funeral Home, 63 Chestnut Hill Avenue in Brighton, MA, at 1p.m. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to Michele’s favorite charity, Doctors without Borders, and/or purchase and read her novel, which would have pleased her no end. For directions and guest book please visit www.lehmanreen.com

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