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NATICK – Marjorie S. Abbott, 76, of Natick, originally of Midland, Michigan, passed away on February 7. 2022, of complications from Parkinson’s disease, which she had dealt with for over 4 years.
She had graduated from the University of Michigan with degrees in Sociology and a Master’s in Library Science. During at least one summer she attended Laval Institute in Quebec Province, with a thought of maybe becoming an interpreter at an embassy.
She had lived in the Boston-Brookline-Natick areas since 1967. She married her husband Tom in Brookline in 1979.
Marge had been a member of the Greater Framingham Running Club since 1984 and, although she wasn’t a runner (her husband did that), she took an active part in club activities such as the annual Christmas Caroling Run (to 3-4 Framingham nursing homes) because Marge had a great singing voice. She went to almost every annual Awards Banquet and Pasta Party (before the Boston Marathon), every GFRC Super Bowl Party in the early 2000s, and helped cheer on GFRC runners in the Plymouth-to-Provincetown Relay and the Winnepesaukee Relay. She and her husband hosted GFRC meetings and a Pot Luck Supper in the 1990s.
Marge became a very avid basketball and football fan during her U of Michigan days, and later of the NFL with Len Dawson of KC and Sonny Jurgenson of the W ‘Skins. Then in Massachusetts, she became a huge Boston (and then NE) Patriots and Boston Celtics fan (loving Don Nelson the most). She was watching every Celtics game in 2020-2022, but did wish Jayson Tatum had not grown a beard! (Jayson, are you reading this?) She had watched every Patriots game with her husband since 1973.
In her Boston/Brookline years before marriage, Marge and her fiance and close friends would host very large parties in her husband’s (and roommates’) huge Allston apartment two to three times a year for 6 years. A friend was a semi-pro DJ and he’d play rock and disco dance recordings for free the whole time. Other social activities included weekly dancing to a DJ in the Bibliotech at the Hampshire House on Beacon Street, Boston, where friends were made, many after-work art openings and party invites from friends were also always indulged in! There was also a bit of tennis playing usually on the Harvard Courts and skiing at Waterville Valley, NH, or reading in the shade by the Charles River.
After finishing an 18-year career at the NE Deaconess Nursing School (Admissions Officer), she started working at Framingham State in the Student Activities Department in 1990 and then the Library until she retired in 2012.
She absolutely loved to travel and over the years went with her husband to Switzerland, Cornwall, England, all the New England states, Virginia, North and South Carolina, New York City, Maryland, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, in addition to flights to Arizona to visit with her husband’s parents and both drives and flights to see her own parents in Midland, Michigan.
Her loves – besides travel – were cats, feeding the birds (and squirrels!), visits to Pet World to visit the cats, almost all flowers, Scrabble, crossword puzzles, mystery novels, mystery shows on PBS channels (mainly because Channels 2 & 44 didn’t have interrupting ads), Joan Baez’s singing, and country music. Her all-time favorite country group was The Highwaymen (Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Khris Kristopherson) which she would play from a recording over and over and over – for good reason! Other recent PBS favorites of hers were most Masterpiece Theatres –dozens, including the 5 years of Downton Abbey episodes. Other recent PBS favorites included The Midwife, All Creatures Great and Small, Rick Steves’ Europe, and The Great British Baking Show”. All were watched with her husband. Marge had the ability to remember lyrics her father sang to her on ski trips and loved to sing them exactly from 70 years ago! Here’s an Ogden Nash limerick she always loved to repeat: “I eat my peas with honey, I’ve done it all my life; It makes the peas taste funny, But it keeps them on my knife.”
Her brother remembers as a kid in Midland, Michigan, she loved to play Kick the Can, play competitive bee-catching (in a bottle!), ski, swim, play tennis, fish from a log, and go on ski trips with her parents and brother. She always loved sunny days, so much so that she admitted she might have “Seasonal Affective Disorder.” “Any sunny day is a good day,” was her motto.
In her Boston/Brookline years before marriage, Marge and her fiance and close friends would host very large parties in her husband’s (and roommates’) huge Allston apartment two to three times a year for 6 years. A friend was a part-time DJ and he’d play rock and disco dance numbers for free the whole time. Other social activities included dancing in the Bibliotech at the Hampshire House on Beacon Street, Boston. Very numerous after-work art openings and party invites from friends were also always indulged in! As were flea markets.
On the personality side, she was always quiet in any group larger than four but in especially one-to-one conversations she was very animated and engaging, plus a patient listener.
She leaves her husband, Tom, of Natick, her predeceased parents, Albert B and Stepmother Esther A Savage (birth mother was Ruth M Coppersmith) of Michigan, brother John Savage (and wife, Julie) of Saginaw, MI,, nephew Phil Savage (Elizabeth), of MI, niece Kimberly (Gerard) Bumbardaner, niece Stephanie (Ryan) Anderson, cousins Sylvia (Charles) Savage-Briefer, and Kathleen Savage, of Norwalk, CT, cousin Bob Coppersmith (Gay), of Florida, and Midge Coppersmith, of Maryland, and 8 Great-grandnieces and nephews.
Any plans for a Celebration of Life are incomplete at this point. In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made in Marge’s name to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, Grand Central Station, P.O. Box 4777, New York, NY 10163-4777, or Parkinson’s Foundation, PO Box 6003, Albert Lea, MN, 56007-6603.
Arrangements by the McCarthy, McKinney & Lawler Funeral Home of Framingham.
For online tributes, or to share a memory with the family, kindly visit www.mccarthyfh.com
McCarthy McKinney Lawler Funeral Home