Obituaries
Michael Davis Barnett
Apr 24, 2008

Michael Davis Barnett of Orleans, Mass., died April 21.

Born in Chicago on February 19, 1927, he grew up in Highland Park, Ill., and Pelham, N.Y.

He enlisted in the U.S. armed services shortly after his 17th birthday in what became the closing months of World War II. He was sent to Tokyo University, then assigned to the international team that surveyed the 38th Parallel in Korea.

Following military service, he attended Yale and worked as the photographer on the Yale Daily News. He graduated from Yale in 1950, and  then from Columbia University Business School.

In 1956, he married Joan Dymond of Marblehead, Mass., and the couple moved to New Canaan, where they lived for 46 years, and raised four children.

Mr. Barnett co-founded the investment company Coenen & Company in New York City in 1966. He left to start Primary Medical Communications which seized on cutting edge video technology to film and market surgical techniques to medical schools. Mr. Barnett helped found Marketing Outlooks, a purveyor of banking services, before selling the company and retiring in 1987.

He was a chief in the Indian Guides for nine years with his three boys. An Eagle Scout, he was a troop leader in New Canaan for 10 years. He was also a member of the Chestnut Ridge Road and Gun Club in Dover Plains, N.Y. for 60 years; a charter member of the Lake Club, and  a member of the Orleans Yacht club on Cape Cod, where he and his family spent summers.

He was an avid gardener, gourmet cook and outdoorsman who loved to hunt and fish. He trained hawks as a young boy.  In later years, he could often be found camped out on his hunting property in Dutchess County, N.Y., with his sporting friends and family. For more than 40 years he flew to the Bradford Camps on Lake Munsungan in northern Maine for “ice out” salmon fishing, in early May.

He and his wife moved to Orleans in 2003.

Mr. Barnett is survived by his wife Joan; his children: Lysandra Lincoln and husband Brian of Wilton, Michael Davis Barnett, Jr., and wife Leslie of Sherborn, Mass., Zachary Barnett of Jackson, Wyo., and, Berkeley Barnett and wife Michele of Oakland, Calif., as well as seven grandchildren: Gray and Lyssa Lincoln; Kristen and Brooke Barnett; Bohdan Barnett; and Bridget and Bella Barnett.

A memorial service will be held at the Federated Church of Orleans at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 3.

Donations may be made to the Broad Reach Hospice or the American Cancer Society, and mailed to Broad Reach Hospice, 390 Orleans Road, North Chatham, MA 02650.

© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers