Gwendolyn W. Erwin

Gwendolyn Wynona Erwin, aged 90 years and two weeks, died peacefully of natural causes March 14, 2019. She was surrounded by loving family and flooded with expressions of love and good-byes from around the country. She was born March 2, 1929 in Alexandria, New Hampshire and was raised by her mother, Hazel and stepfather Auguste Clough in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. When only a freshman at Kent State University she called her mother to announce she’d met the man she would marry. When asked his name, she replied, “I don’t know. I’ve only seen him in the library!” She did indeed meet and marry Archie Eugene Erwin September 12, 1948. Seventy years of devoted marriage later he was holding her hand as she slipped away.

Gwen was vibrant, bright, and adventuresome. From scaring cousins in dark barns as a child, joining the coastal watch for German invasion during WW II as a teenager and cruising Falmouth, Mass as a high school senior in a Chevy Coupe she’d finagled her Dad into buying for 50 bucks, to RV’ing multiple times to the American West and the Arctic Circle, to flying half-way around the world to RV New Zealand, Gwen boldly went where she wanted to go.

A woman ahead of her time she taught herself to invest in the stock market and parlayed Archie’s earnings into a sustainable retirement for them both, even getting invited to speak to other amateur investors by a nationally known financial institution.

Gwen loved her family, immediate and extended. She stood by her four children through thick and thin and she absolutely reveled in her grandchildren. As long as she was able she kept in touch with distant siblings and other family.

She is survived by her husband Archie Eugene Erwin, her brothers Dennis and Auguste Clough and their wives, Gaye and Phyllis, respectively, three of her four children: Cheryl Clark and John and Jeff Erwin and their spouses, Margaret Murphy and Todd Anderson. Her youngest son, Michael Erwin predeceased her in 2015. Also surviving her are nine grandchildren: Nathan and Jeremy Bodkin, Andrew J Clark (sons of Cheryl), Arin, Alicia, and Ashton Erwin, (daughters of Michael), and Daniel, Caitlin, and Patrick Erwin, (children of John). Five great-grandchildren—Hannah Flynn, Nora and Sally Bodkin, and Maddalyn and Emmerson Duisberg—survive her as well.

A memorial service to celebrate Gwen’s life will be held at date to be announced to friends and family. Gwen asked that any donations and cost of flowers be given instead to a charitable cause important to the donor.