Amy Stechler, acclaimed documentarian who 'loved small-town life' in Walpole, dies at 67

Sep. 6—WALPOLE — Amy Stechler, the acclaimed documentarian who lived in Walpole for much of her life, died at her home there on Aug. 26 at the age of 67.

Stechler helped establish a new form of documentary film, working at Florentine Films alongside Ken Burns, shortly after he founded the company in 1976 with two other graduates of Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., where Stechler also got her degree.

She was credited as a writer and producer on the 1981 documentary "Brooklyn Bridge," the first major project from Florentine Films, and later made an Emmy-nominated documentary about the artist Frida Kahlo.

Priced out of New York City in 1979 while working on that first documentary, Stechler and Burns, to whom she was married from 1982 to 1993, moved from Manhattan to Walpole, the town where she would spend most of her life, he said in a phone interview Saturday.

"We worked out in the editing room in this tiny little cabin that is still on my property," said Burns, who lives in Walpole at the same house where he and Stechler first moved. "We managed to figure out — we kind of invented, together, our own wheel."

Stechler's patience in the editing process, Burns said, was instrumental to the documentary style developed in the early years of Florentine Films, which he founded with his college friends, Roger Sherman and Buddy Squires.

All four studied at Hampshire College and dove straight into working on "Brooklyn Bridge" upon graduating, finishing the film, which was nominated for an Oscar for best documentary and aired on PBS in 1982, from Walpole.

The critical acclaim with which the film was met brought early fame to Florentine, and to Burns especially.

" 'Brooklyn Bridge' is more than just a short course in one colorful phase of American history," Kenneth R. Clark wrote in a review for United Press International in 1982, according to a New York Times obituary for Stechler. "It is a thing of grace and beauty — one of television's few truly golden hours."

After that original documentary, Burns and Stechler co-directed "The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God," which Stechler was a writer and producer on. She was also one of the writers of the Oscar-nominated "The Statue of Liberty" (1985), which was directed by Burns.

She married Burns in 1982 and by 1986 they had two daughters, Sarah and Lilly Burns.

"I'll never forget that 43 years ago and a few weeks ago, we arrived in Walpole, New Hampshire, in a home where I still live, to begin our lives," Ken Burns said. "It's a spectacular reminder of what we have made together, both in a family and in a professional sense."

A mother first and an artist second, Stechler "loved small town life," Sarah Burns said in an email Sunday, and stepped back from the documentary world to devote herself to raising her children in New Hampshire.

For a while, Stechler taught animation classes from the basement of the Catholic Church in Walpole and later at Hampshire College, her alma mater, Sarah Burns said.

"I remember so well the huge wooden animation stand she had a friend build so that her Bolex film camera could be pointed downward at the backdrops the kids painted," she said in the email. "One year I was part of the group that made a short animated film of the myth Proserpina and Pluto. It was magically fun."

Stechler always managed to find creative outlets and studied oil painting for many years, doing still lifes, nudes and landscapes, Sarah Burns said, recalling her mother as "endlessly patient and loving."

When her daughters were in high school, Stechler returned to documentaries, directing, writing, producing and editing her film "The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo," about the Mexican painter known for her colorful artwork. The documentary aired on PBS in 2003.

For many years, Stechler would spend her summers in Walpole — which Lilly Burns said in an email Sunday was her "favorite place on earth" — and her winters in Brooklyn, N.Y., where she could be close to her grandchildren.

Around 2005, Stechler was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis, according to Ken Burns and her daughters. She dealt with the disease — which progressed over the years before her death — "with an unfathomable grace," Lilly Burns said.

Stechler, who was born June 23, 1955, in New Haven, Conn., grew up in Lexington, Mass., according to her New York Times obituary. Her second marriage, to Rod Thibeault, also ended in divorce. In addition to her daughters, she is survived by her partner, Bill Patterson; a sister, Nancy Stechler Gawle; and five grandchildren.

Remembering her mother, Sarah Burns said, "And most of all she loved being in nature, the sounds of Walpole outside her window — most of all the chirping of peepers that signaled the arrival of spring."

Ryan Spencer can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1412, or rspencer@keenesentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter at @rspencerKS