Louise Card

Alice Louise Priest Card—Louise to everyone—quietly passed away at her home in Acton, Massachusetts, on August 18, 2025, after living a long and blessed life. Wife, sister, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, not to mention matron of an ever-expanding extended friends and family, she presided regally over holidays, feasts, weddings, birthdays, road races, graduations, christenings and The Bachelor watch parties. It was a full-time job, presiding, and she took immeasurable pride in it.

She cooked—for everyone—any occasion. Pies, roasts, peanut butter stuffed dates, cheeseballs, cheesy onions, tuna loaf, snow pudding, the best mac n’ cheese you’ve ever had, four different kinds of Christmas cookies, Louise had an unbeatable repertoire in her tin box of hand-written recipe cards. And she traveled. Oh, she traveled. As a young girl growing up in the coastal towns of Rockport and Rockland, Maine, she likely couldn’t have imagined the places she’d see, almost all of which she experienced with her late husband, Clifford. From to Alaska to Alabama, Pensacola to Palermo, the Grand Canyon to the Grand Coulee Dam— And who knows how many state capitol buildings she stood in front of, how many campgrounds were shrouded with the aroma of Dinty Moore from her camp stove. And: forty-nine states. Forty-nine.. Together she and Clifford set out to experience the world, and they did, hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon not once, but three times, the last in their seventies.

She loved fiercely, profusely and (mostly) unconditionally: Clifford, her husband of sixty-six years, her dear sister Helen, her three children, her neighbors, her son- and daughters-in-law, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews, friends of nieces and nephews, friends of friends. Never was a birthday, anniversary or Valentine’s Day forgotten. It was no surprise when a card from Louise showed up in the mailbox on Flag Day. Single-handedly she must have kept the greeting card industry afloat.

On November 6,1933, Louise was born in Rockland, Maine, to parents Frank and Alice Priest. Growing up in the seaside villages of Rockport and Rockland, she attended Rockland public schools, and, after a short stint in college in North Carolina, transferred to the University of Connecticut, where she met her future husband and love of her life, Clifford, then a smooth-talking young man studying for his Masters Degree. At UConn she pledged to the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, and met so many fellow students with whom she remained friends all her life. Always lunch with the Kappas and the Kappa Christmas party were highlights of her year, and she became an ardent UConn Huskies fan, especially of the perennial championship women’s basketball team.

Every year she learned the name of every single player on an ever-changing roster. Marrying Clifford in July of 1957, the couple moved to Eddy Street, in Sudbury, Massachusetts, in 1958, and soon became active members of the Saint Elizabeth's Episcopal church community, and 8 Eddy Street became a central outpost for the Eddy Street cohort, old and young, where she never failed to support children’s parades, sledding expeditions, neighborhood cookouts, and mending a skinned knee or broken heart.

Louise worked as a lunchroom aid at the Curtis Middle School, in Sudbury, where Clifford had become principal in 68, a particularly thankless job which she tackled with grace, firmness and tact, corralling hundreds of exuberant middle-schoolers during her tenure.

Louise was a true original. She walked faster than most people sprint. She had a freezer full of stewed tomatoes that went back to the Eisenhower administration. She played a mean game of tennis well into her seventies. She wore the same Christmas dress for forty years. Don’t mention the Busy Box.

Louise is survived by her children Richard, Jennifer (Stephen), and Thomas (JoAnne). She leaves six grandchildren, Ambrose, Elizabeth, Charlie, Emily, Margo and Baker, two great-grandchildren, Owen and Oona, as well as many many nieces and nephews. There would be no greater joy for her than knowing these are the legacy of her life.

Those of us who knew her will keep the memory of her good graces all our lives.

Donations in Louise's memory may be made to Give.nationalparks.org and https://www.st-elizabeths.org/care-pantry