Diane Russell (née Diane Guay) was born in Swampscott Mass in 1943 and was raised in Topsfield, MA. She was the daughter to Juliette Guay (née Bouchard) and Emile Guay, and sister to Joseph Guay.

 She lived in the longtime family home that her grandfather had helped build in downtown Topsfield at the turn of the century, a grand Victorian lady of a house that was the family seat and remained one of the things she remembered even as much else had faded from her awareness. When her father died when she was four, her mother and brother moved back home to live with her grandparents, her aunt and uncle, and her cousin Robert.

 Her love for this beautiful place led her to a lifelong appreciation of old homes, which she made a large part of her life, later raising her two girls in a small Victorian in Ipswich, MA.

 An artist from an early age, her first drawing that her mother recognized as something important was a duck she drew in chalk on the sidewalk. Diane went to Massachusetts College of Art, and through her studies there began her life as a professional artist.

 During college, she had a long relationship with the artist William Wegman, posed as a model for the photographer Marie Cosindas, and developed the aesthetic sensibility that later brought her to audio-visual production at the Boston advertising firm Atkins and Riley.

 During this time, she met and married Jeffrey Krouk. Together they bought an apple orchard, Dodge's Orchard, in Rowley, MA, where their daughters Rebecca and Liza were born and spent their early years.

 When she and Jeffrey divorced, she went back to work full time in Boston, this time doing audio-visual production for the Boston Globe, and bought a house for herself and her two girls in Ipswich, near her brother and his children.

 She had a celebrated tenure as a producer at the Globe, winning a silver medal at the prestigious Art Directors Club. In the later 1980s she moved into the advertising and special graphic design projects department at the Boston Globe, and continued to work as a graphic designer until her retirement in the late 1990s.

 She had a second marriage, to Max Russell of Ipswich, MA, who owned Goodale Orchards (later Russell Orchards). They were married for eighteen years, and during that time she did many product designs for the orchard store. She loved walking the orchard with her little dog Pepper and her dear friend Laura Russell, who also lived nearby on the property.

 In the early 2000s, she bought a house near her daughter Rebecca and her son-in-law Matt, and their daughter Vivian (now Eliette). Her other daughter, Liza (now Eliza), and her husband soon moved nearby as well, with their son Jack.

 She spent her later years doing freelance design for independent clients such as Boston Irish Tourism and the Arcadia Players, and much of her life helping her daughters and their spouses raise their children, being a wonderful, funny, irreverent Nana.

 In 2017, she survived an ovarian cancer diagnosis, but complications from chemotherapy led to a significant decline between 2017 and 2026. She lived near her daughter Rebecca in a memory care apartment between 2023 and 2026. She was with her daughter Rebecca and her son-in-law Matthew for the days and weeks leading up to her death on September 10th.

 She was passionate and talented. A lifelong Democrat and humanist she always questioned dogma and sought truth, common sense, kindness and championed human rights and social justice throughout her life. She was a mighty fighter who raised her two daughters largely as a single mother, through her own hard work, commuting for their whole lives every day on the train to Boston from Ipswich. She loved classic literature, poetry, opera, classical music, gardening, and making her home beautiful with her own two hands and hard work.

She was loved so much, and will be so very missed.

The family invites you to join them at Wildwood Cemetery, 70 Strong street, Amherst on Friday, September 18, 2026, at 1:00 P.M. for a natural green burial service for Diane.

                (Please arrive promptly by 12:45 P.M. and follow the signs upon entering                              the main gate at Wildwood Cemetery.)