Charlotte Wood has been a watching “Jeopardy!” for years, and doing that long ago made her an enduring fan of the show’s popular host, the late Alex Trebek, who before succumbing to complications from pancreatic cancer in November had presided over the TV quiz game for some 37 years.
And until two years ago, Wood, a longtime Westhampton resident, had another long-term relationship in her life. She and her late husband, Kenneth, had been married for 52 years before he died in 2018 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
This year, Wood, 76, has recognized both her husband and Trebek with contributions to the Gazette’s Sidney F. Smith Toy Fund, which distributes vouchers to families with children in the Valley for buying gifts during the holidays.
She’s sent one check, for $75, under the names of her grandchildren — Alyssa, Alexandra, Samantha, Carter, Presto and Page — in memory of the man they knew as their “Grampie.” And Wood’s second check, for $25, is in memory of Trebek, a man she describes as “personable, knowledgeable, sincere, gracious and good-looking.”
“Alex had the whole package,” Wood, a retired elementary school teacher, said with a laugh during a recent phone call. “Some game show hosts make the whole event about themselves. Alex never did that — he never wanted to be the star. His show was always about making contestants feel comfortable and focusing on them.”
Obituaries for Trebek last month remarked on those same qualities, and a number of Valley residents who in recent years competed on the show, on which answers are presented in the form of a question, also noted Trebek’s genial manner and friendliness.
For many years, Wood noted, friends and others knew not to call her at 7:30 p.m. on weekday nights: “They knew I’d be in front of my TV.”
The show has brought her particular comfort in the last few years since the loss of her husband, who had also been a schoolteacher as well as an avid softball player and umpire. Ken’s increasing confusion and withdrawal had been a difficult thing for her grandchildren in particular to deal with, Wood said, though they ultimately handled it well.
Her youngest grandchild, Samantha, who is 7, recently wrote her a letter, with her best lettering, in which she said she still misses her Grampie Ken and hopes that “he’s having a good time in Heaven,” Wood said. “It was the absolute most precious thing. I cried so much.”
That letter, and the fact that she and Ken had previously donated to the toy fund and to other charitable causes at the holidays, made Wood decide to give to the fund again this year.
“It’s a very worthy cause,” she said.
She’s also looking forward to a gift her grandchildren have arranged for her: a T-shirt that reads “Don’t call me at 7:30 — I’ll be watching ‘Jeopardy!’”
The Sidney F. Smith Toy Fund is named after a former business manager at the Gazette and began in 1933 to help families during the Great Depression. The program distributes vouchers worth $40 to families for each child age 1 to 14. Eligible families must live in any Hampshire County community except Ware, in the southern Franklin County towns of Deerfield, Sunderland, Whately, Shutesbury, and Leverett, or in Holyoke in Hampden County.
18 Degrees Family Services for Western Massachusetts, at 59 Interstate Drive in West Springfield, verifies families’ eligibility, while the Gazette covers costs associated with the drive, freeing all donations to fund the vouchers.
Donations to the Toy Fund may be mailed to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, P.O. Box 299, Northampton, MA 01061, or made through gazettenet.com. Checks should be made payable to the Sidney F. Smith Toy Fund.
Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.