Mary E. (Holton) Race
RACE, Mary E. (Holton), 89, PRESQUE ISLE, March 7, 2011. Visiting hours are scheduled at the funeral home from 6 to 8 p.m., on Friday, March 18. Burial will be at the Hall Cemetery in Jefferson, ME. Arrangements are in the care of Hall Funeral Home, Waldoboro, ME.
PRESQUE ISLE – Mary E. (Holton) Race passed away on March 7, 2011, at a health care facility in Presque Isle, after a short illness.
Mary was born on May 22, 1921, to Gertrude (Blossom) Holton and Carl Russell Holton in Worcester, Mass., where she lived as a young child. Her family moved from Worcester to Braintree, Mass., in 1929. She always looked forward to spending summers in Boothbay Harbor, ME, the hometown of both of her parents. She graduated from Braintree High School with the class of 1939, and went on to attend the University of Massachusetts, graduating in 1943. She received her degree in home economics with a focus on nutrition, textiles, and interior design. After college, she taught nutrition classes to low income families through the Hampden County Extension Service in Springfield, Mass., and later taught home economics in Brockton, Mass.
She was married on July 2, 1945, in Braintree, to Edward Race of East Boothbay, ME, after he returned from service with the U.S. Army in Europe. They lived in Orono, ME, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, while he pursued advanced degrees in mathematics in preparation for a teaching career. In 1949, they moved to Northfield, VT, where Edward accepted a position as professor at Norwich University. They purchased one of the oldest homes in Northfield, on Union Brook Road, in 1954, and worked hard to improve the property over the coming years. They raised their family and lived there until Edward retired from Norwich in 1985. At that time, they moved to another country home in Damariscotta, ME, where Mary resided until 2002. She then moved to a smaller lakeside home in Goffstown, NH, to be near her son and grandchildren. Since 2007, she enjoyed her residence at the Leisure Village retirement center in Presque Isle, where she took pleasure in open spaces, visits to the north Maine woods, and moose watching.
In the early years in Northfield, Mary worked at the Norwich University library and became involved with hand weaving in her home. She was soon recognized in Vermont as an accomplished weaver and sold woven items of clothing, primarily through specialty shops in Stowe and Woodstock. She taught weaving and interior design at the University of Vermont in Burlington and Castleton and at other locations for the Vermont Extension Service. She was remembered for her creativity and enthusiasm at workshops she held in elementary schools to introduce children to weaving and crafts. She taught home economics at Northfield High School on a substitute basis. Her weaving and spinning demonstrations and exhibitions were well received at various country fairs and summer events in northern New England.
She travelled frequently later in life, especially with Elderhostels, to places of geological interest. Destinations included Newfoundland, Labrador, the Canadian Arctic, Iceland, Greenland, Scandinavia, Hawaii, and the Canadian Rockies. As a senior citizen, she visited the arctic region above Spitzbergen, Norway aboard a Russian oceanographic research vessel and in inflatable rafts to study icebergs and glaciers and came home to share some amazing “up close” photographs.
She pursued a variety of other interests and activities with a remarkable level of energy well into her retirement years. As an avid reader of natural history and scientific literature, she especially enjoyed the writings of Chet Raymo. She audited courses in geology at Norwich University and Bowdoin College. She was also interested in amateur astronomy, oceanography, fractals, cooking, canoeing, water color painting, art appreciation, camping, photography, and ice skating, and played the flute from an early age.
Throughout her life, she held a special affinity for horses, including her horse, Lady Millis, that she owned as a young woman. She was fascinated and inspired by clouds and ocean surf. She very much enjoyed poetry; a book of verses written by her father when she was a child endured as her favorite possession.
Mary was active in church, civic, and academic organizations. Among these were the Unitarian Church, the Vermont Arts and Crafts Council, the Vermont Weavers Guild, various entities at Norwich University, the Boothbay Region Historical Society, the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center in Walpole, the Gulf of Maine Foundation, and the Damariscotta Chamber of Commerce.
Mary is survived by her sister, Louise Worth and her husband, Walter of Quincy, Mass.; her son, Byron of Presque Isle; and her grandchildren: Kristy Race of Manchester, NH, Joshua Prim also of Manchester, and Kenneth Race of Oklahoma City, OK. She leaves her nieces, Patricia McLaughlin and Carol Apgar, and her nephew, Ronald Worth in Mass.; and cousins and in-laws in Maine and Mass. She was predeceased by her husband, Edward in 1986; and by her son, Clyde in 2008.
Arrangements are being handled by the Hall Funeral Home in Waldoboro, ME. Visiting hours are scheduled at the funeral home from 6 to 8 p.m., on Friday, March 18, 2011. Burial will be at the Hall Cemetery in Jefferson, ME. Memorial donations may be made in Mary’s name to The Nature Conservancy.
