Margaret Batson Anderson

Margaret was born May 20, 1928 in Brockton, Massachusetts, the youngest of eight - and last surviving - child of Walter N. Batson and Ellen J. (Tweedy) Batson. Seven years younger than her youngest sibling, she was beloved by all, she continued this gift of love her entire eighty-nine years. She went to school and the movies and enjoyed city life. She remembered the Hindenburg flying over Brockton. In 1938 the family moved permanently to their summer home in Addison, Maine. The small coastal town was a stark change, instead of steam heat, electricity, and plumbing it was kerosene lamps, a backhouse, and a well across the dirt road, but she flourished.

After graduating from Addison High School in 1946, she was accepted to the University of Maine in Orono. In 1950, she graduated with a degree in dietetics and home economics and a minor in painting. As a senior at the University that she met the love of her life, Robert H. Anderson - then a veteran - freshmen - at a stag dance, as the president of the Home Economics Club she was required to attend. It was a small crowd, so they danced together all evening. They married on June 16, 1951.

In 1959 Margaret and Bob bought property in North Yarmouth, Maine where they worked hand-in-hand for twenty-eight years to build a potato and cattle farm while raising four children, until Bob died suddenly in 1983. She diligently kept the farm’s books and worked harder than any person to keep her family and farm in working order. Her hardworking ethics and organizational skills influenced all of her children’s career’s and work ethics. She never considered remarrying and she stayed in that farmhouse for the rest of her life, eventually steering the farm to a close, replaced with her help, by Anderson Landscaping where she worked alongside her son and a daughter until finally retiring at seventy-one.

Margaret touched many people’s lives not only with her work but also a teacher, a long time 4- H Leader, and Sunday School Teacher. She was steady and sincere. She was frank, but warmly so. She was dryly funny. Her eyes sparkled. She had deep roots and kept so many alive in her memories. She relished pleasures close at hand: long conversations, letters and cards, her garden flowers, birds that could be seen from her living room windows, a game of bridge, reading books, the daily newspaper, its crossword. She’d finally, before Christmas, worn completely through the binding of her dictionary.

Her most cherished roles were wife, mother, sister, aunt, grandmother, friend. She kept her family close, was often their patience, was always their confidant. As a mother, she was devoted in raising her children to be honest and hardworking. She looked for the best in others.

Margaret died in the midst of her life - still with steady foot traffic that week around the dining room table where she held court. On Wednesday she bowled in her weekly league, scoring one of her highest scores. Saturday night she complimented her own cooking as she enjoyed one of her favorite meals. She saw or spoke to her children daily. She has left a hole. She is profoundly missed.

She is predeceased by her husband of thirty-two years, Robert Anderson. She is survived by four children, daughter Katherine Sumner and her husband Paul, daughter Christina Benn Smith and her husband Lee, son Robert Anderson, Jr. and his wife Karen, and daughter Virginia Anderson; eight grandchildren, Michael Benn and his wife Katrina Baker, Jessica Benn and her husband Ryan Zipper, Stephanie Sumner and her fiancé Stephen Triphahn, Lindsey Sumner, Davis Finch, Brianna Conlon Anderson, Kendra Anderson, and Nolan Anderson; and three great grandchildren, Reina Benn, Chiara Benn, and Ronan Zipper, her niece Ann Blanchard along with others too numerous to mention.

A Remembrance Gathering will be held Friday Night 4:00 to 7:00 at Toddy Brook Golf Course. A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, January 20th, at the First Congregational Church on 3 Gray Road in North Yarmouth, ME. followed by a reception at Toddy Brook Golf Course on 925 Sligo Road. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the Salvation Army.