Nicholas David Humez

Nick Humez and wife, Leslie Edwards.

Nicholas David Humez, 75, of Painesville, Ohio, died peacefully in his sleep on September 5, 2023.

Nick was both very imaginative and very outgoing, with a continually expanding circle of friends to whom he remained forever loyal.

You might have become friends in one of the places in which he lived—Arlington, Lexington, and Cambridge MA.; Paoli, PA; Portland, ME, Montclair, NJ; Painesville, OH—or in one or another of the creative spheres in which he played an active and accomplished role up to his final days:

Musician: composer of instrumental music from symphonies to solo pieces for a variety of instruments, chamber operas and art songs; singer with a fine tenor voice, both as soloist and choir member, the latter in Lexington’s First Parish Church, Boston’s Old North Church, and the a cappella groups Cantores Sine Nomine and Vox Humana).  He was a member of the Cleveland Composer’s Guild, past president of Maine’s Composer’s Forum and supporter/contributor of Friends of Music at Guilford, Vermont.  Nick’s CD, Myth Songs, features him in his multiple roles as composer, singer, and lyricist. His Rag Time compositions are currently being recorded.

Silversmith/sculptor: creator of original but deliberately accessibly priced jewelry—earrings, necklaces, bracelets, brooches, rings—and of fanciful, meticulously executed sterling silver sculptures, as varied as the tesseract he created as a teething toy for his niece, the Victorian lamp post accompanied by a working penny-farthing bicycle with attachable miniature lock and chain, and his elaborate series of calaveras. He has been the Executive Director of Directions, a Maine craft guild.

Writer: book author (both solo and in collaboration with others); periodical columnist (Portland Press Herald, Verbatim, the language Quarterly; co-publisher of Pork Belly Review which elevated young writers: music critic for the first, author of a column entitled “Classical Blather” for the latter);  he was editor of Matters Magazine; long term contributor to Cafe Blue (where he met and charmed his wife); writer of Letters to the Editor and letters to a multitude of friends and acquaintances; lyricist and master of light verse, all delivered in a blend of erudition and dry wit. Reviewing one of Nick’s books in The Baltimore Sun, Daniel Berger wrote: “Reading a Humez sentence is like taking off in a jet plane. The thing rumbles along slowly, slants up swiftly and swerves in unanticipated directions, soaring into the blue without a hint as to where it might come down. This is dangerous stuff.”

Cartoonist, sketcher in pen and ink, book indexer, proof reader, editor, mentor, teacher, friend: Nick was all of these too, always with characteristic generosity and quirky good humor (yes, even as an indexer).

Nick is survived by his wife Leslie Edwards, step-son Matthew and daughter-in-law Marina, his brother Alex and sister-in-law Jean, and their daughter Andrea and son-in-law Jan.

Donations in his name may be made to Hospice of the Western Reserve, David Simpson Hospice House, 300 East 185th Street, Cleveland OH 44119