Barbara Ann (Piquette) Letendre of South Wellfleet, daughter of Roland and Grace Piquette, sister to Nick, Bob, Joyce and Betty Piquette of Springfield, was 86 years old when she left us this past weekend. She missed Bob, her husband of 63 years. After struggling with her health for many months, she said a final goodbye to her five children, their children, and their children's children, all by her bedside in the final days.
Barbara often commented on the lives we all lead when compared to hers. She lived in a simpler time. She grew up in Springfield and went to Commerce High School where she received secretarial training and was voted “most friendly.” She was proud to be proficient at short hand and the fastest typist in her class. Since she was such a beauty, she had young men courting her but she chose Bob, a house builder, recently returned from the Air Force in World War II. The story is that one day Bob decided to sell hot dogs and hamburgers at the Eastern States Exposition. After building himself a stand, he met Barb and hired her to help out. Since it rained almost every day and they had few customers, he got to know Barbara and her sense of humor. He invited her to go out for dinner and when she agreed, he handed her a hot dog.
After many years of raising kids in West Springfield, Barbara and Bob moved to South Wellfleet where she spent summers on a bluff overlooking Black Fish Creek. In the winter they loved going to the warmth of Florida. Barbara loved playing bridge with friends, banana grams, competitive scrabble with family and reading novels, many of which Bob got at the swap shop. Barbara enjoyed her friends and was a member of the Ramapogue Womens Club in West Springfield and a founding member of the Newcomers Club in Orleans.
Us kids would come and go. We ended up doing various things and living in various places: her children, Roland Letendre (Lucia) in Mattapoisett, Diane (Paul Teta) in Longmeadow, Carrie (the late Joe Rushby) in Wellfleet, and Robin (Jim Manning) and Cynthia (Mark Cilfone) in Falmouth, but, most likely, we will all end up spending our final years on the outer Cape, a place that no family ever leaves forever, a place that takes you back. We will be there together. We will remember Bob and Barb, the people who brought us there, who we loved, who loved us.
Her Funeral Mass will be celebrated on Friday, March 14th at 11 AM in St. Anthony's Church, 22 Barstow Street, Mattapoisett. Visiting hours will be on Thursday, March 13th from 4-8 PM in the Saunders-Dwyer Mattapoisett Home for Funerals, 50 County Rd. (Rt. 6), Mattapoisett.