Barbara Elizabeth Boutin, 94, passed away peacefully at her daughter's home in Pittsfield, MA on Tuesday, May 24th. She was born in Chicopee, MA on April 28, 1922, the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt Corliss and Florence Gertrude (Robertson). She was married February 22, 1941, to her beloved husband, the late Albert J Boutin Jr (2003). As a child she spent her summers on the beach in Wells, ME. When she retired from driving a Springfield Special Needs school bus at the age of 80, she spent her summers in the Berkshires and her winters in Tallahassee, FL. After raising her children, she worked as an LPN in Obstetrics at the former Providence Hospital. At age 65 she got her bachelor degree from the University of Massachusetts. During WWII she was a captain in the Massachusetts Women's Defense Corps. Both she and her husband Al were founding members of the Willimansette Heights Improvement League, the very first meeting hosted in their home. Barbara's volunteer work was extensive, some of which was driving the Chicopee Senior Center van, teaching needlework to the seniors and local 4-H'ers. Even in her 90's she taught knitting at Lake Talquin Baptist Church and called bingo at the Fort Braden Senior Center in Tallahassee. She was a parishioner of St. Mary's in the Willimansett section of Chicopee until it's closing by the Catholic Church, she then supported St. Rose de Lima in Aldenville. Barbara was a member of the Red Hat Social Club of Tallahassee and the Mayflower Society, directly descending from both Stephen Hopkins and William Brewster. Her 7th great grandmother was Hannah (Emerson) Duston, a colonial heroine from Haverhill, MA. She leaves a sister, Nancy Martin in California, her two daughters, Barbara B. Sullivan of Tallahassee, FL and Corliss A. Brielman and her husband Christopher of Pittsfield; two sons, Ernest A. Boutin of Hermiston, OR and Michael J. Boutin and his wife Rhoda of Jacksonville, FL. She also leaves three granddaughters, Tracy D. Raheb, Jennifer B. Bundy and Suzanne M. Lafleur; two grandsons, Ryan J Boutin and Christopher M. Brielman; 6 great-grandchildren, Kevin M. Shannon, Meagan M. and Rachael D. Raheb, Brandon P. and Devon B. Lafleur, and Daniel P. Bundy; 1 great-great-grandson, Jamie M. Shannon. She was predeceased by a sister, Jean Peterson; 2 grandchildren, Beth Anne Sullivan and James Daniel Sullivan Jr and 1 great-grandchild, Aiden Michael Lafleur. A Funeral Service will be held on Saturday, June 4, 2016 at 9:30 a.m. at Grise Funeral Home, 280 Springfield St., Chicopee, followed by an 11 a.m. Mass at Assumption Church and burial in Calvary Cemetery. Visiting Hours will be held on the morning of the funeral from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Donations in her memory may be made to the charity of your choice or to the Willimansette Heights Improvement League in care Grise Funeral Home.
Eulogy:
My father had an expression I think you've all heard. He didn't say “I love you.” much out loud because..... “It goes without saying”. Well my mother never adhered to that philosophy. Nothing went without saying. She talked to everybody about everything and all the time. She talked about her past and her future plans. She talked about anything that was happening in her world and anything that was happening in your world, but mostly her world. You never had to guess what she was thinking. If it was on her mind it was coming out of her mouth. She talked during television programs. Mike would probably have preferred that she wait until the commercial came on. She even talked in her sleep. Barbara and I would have preferred that she wait until morning. However there were a few amusing times on a cruise. Once she woke us our of a sound sleep telling us quiet loudly that “You girls are doing a wonderful job! Keep up the good work!” I'll bet you all have your own stories of how you “couldn't get a word in edgewise” But that's the very reason I thought it was important that something was actually said out loud about the time she spent here with us.
Where to start. I'm going to miss her stories of growing up in the 1920's and 30's. Her mother was a relatively wealthy and brilliant pianist who graduated from Chicopee High School with all the top honors plus got a full scholarship to the Julliard School of Music, but left all that for love and marriage to the very handsome football star athlete, my grandpa Tacky. Her mother died at the age of 19, 3 days after mom was born so mom was raised by her father's parents. The other grandparents had a store on State St, in Springfield and mom learned to roll dates and shell nuts for the candy store but that grieving grandmother didn't have much patience or love (I think) for the wild little girl. Except for her kindly Grandpa Robertson and his Scottish burr I don't think mom liked going over there much. She had to learn all these fancy manners, like using a napkin and putting it in her lap. Mom just wanted to work with all of her grandpa's carpentry tools. Mom always said that she had a wonderful, spoiled childhood getting to have her run of the Wells beach all summer long totally unsupervised even as a 3 year old. Then back in Chicopee she had all of her older aunts and uncles. She said that she didn't even remember being hungry during the Great Depression unlike my father who had to held bring in money for his family. When I heard the stories of her childhood it didn't sound like much fun. She had to walk everywhere and all by herself too; even off to school in the cold winder snow with long wet woolen stalking – guess there were no snow days. And the worst walking trip I hear her talk about was off alone to the dentist after school. Mom had terrible teeth and the drilling back then was done without Novocain or the water cooled drill. She said her hands were dripping with sweat on the walk there. But mom really didn't mind walking. She walked a ½ mile down the hill to catch a bus when she was ready to deliver her first baby because she didn't want to pay Mr. Chicka $5 to have him drive her to the hospital. She walked a mile home from the Rivoli movie theater one night with a live duck that she had won as a door prize....and that was when she was pregnant with Barbara. When my dad retired, they walked for fun, or at least fun for dad. Mom just went along to keep him company. Mom insisted that her childhood was wonderful but there wasn't TV or even radio. She actually remembered hearing radio for the first time. Her uncle had a “crystal set” they called it, with copper wire rolled around an oatmeal box with a head set so she could hear some music or talking when her uncle wiggled a wire. Maybe that's why mom loved technology. We always said there wasn't a new gadget that she didn't have to have. When the Apple i-watch came out, mom got one of those right away. Everyone she met was always impressed that she could run all these electronics. She didn't mind learning new things even if she wasn't perfect at it. Fortunately Tracy, Suzanne, and Christopher Michael were there to remind her how to use them. I'm sure Jennifer and Ryan would have helped too. When she was just 7 years old she got to held per aunt Gretchen who was a telephone operator. Telephone operators worked from home and slept on a cot by a big board of lights and wires. Mom got to wear the big head set with the huge microphone that hung down in front of her face whenever her aunt took a nap. When people called the “operator”, 7 year old mom would push the wire into whatever socket was lit up and connect it to the other person's number. She always remembered Dr. Fletcher's number. It was “66” and when people called for him in the middle of the night, she didn't have to search for his number. It sounded to her like “sick, sick”.
Since she was raised by her grandmother Nellie, she had lots of stories about that generation too. Her grandma Nellie's father Grandpa Cheney owned ½ the town wells, so the story goes, had 35 children and outlived 7 wives by the time he died. The family has its own private cemetery that she would make us all visit and take pictures in front of the gravestones whenever we were in Maine. And she was very proud that her Grandpa Corliss's grandmother was a “full blooded American Indian” as mom would call her. Mom always thought Dolly Horn was a Cherokee princess escaped from the “Trail of Tears” but Mike and Rhoda did some real genealogy work and it turns out that we are Wampanaugh! It didn't change the story – mom would say “don't confuse me with facts when my mind is made up.” She used to tell me about her grandpa Corliss who was a master mechanic and could make or invent anything. In fact, his son Billy, her uncle, was a master mechanic too, and he invented the dimples on golf balls while working right here at Spauldings in Chicopee. She was so proud of her Yankee heritage. The stories would take 2 hours, there was Hannah Duston, the first woman in the country to have a stature erected in her honor for being brave enough to escape capture by a band of savages. There was even a revolutionary war general or captain or something in there.
Mom told me stories of being a young teenager with lots and lots of boyfriends....one of which was even and honest to goodness bootlegger. He would drive up to Canada bringing back liquor under the side boards of a big fancy car. I forget the name of the car but like all of her stories, just hearing or seeing the name of something would remind her of the take and off she'd go. Like walking home through the hurricane of 1938, plate glass windows being blown out and live wires sparking in the puddles across the street.
And hearing about life as a very young bride was amazing. She lost her Grandma Nellie when mom was 16 so she really had to raise her kids with no motherly help or advice. By age 21 she had 3 babies in diapers! Real cloth diapers that froze on the line in the winter. Wow! She used to tell my dad that as long as he came home and they weren't drowned in the bathtub she was doing a good job. Dad worked all day plus was in politics as a Chicopee Alderman. Meme sent help by the way of young Claire and Theresa. What a blessing Meme was to mom. Mom liked to use her creative skills by rearranging the whole house and poor dad came home from a late night Alder-manic meeting trying to get quietly into his bedroom only now it was his sister Terry sleeping in his old room! That woke up the whole household.
From what I understand and can see from old photographs, in addition to being very vivacious, she was really really cute. In fact, she entered the Mrs Massachusetts contest as a young mother and she was runner up. There is still a silver streak platter packed away somewhere that she received as a trophy.
Mom had enough energy and creative talent for 2 people. Plus a real sense of adventure! Jennifer definitely inherited her sense of adventure. We all know how much mom lived cruising. I didn't think anything was going to slow her down. Suzanne was impressed that one time she went on a cruise with a broken collar bone. Even in her late 80's she had us signed up for zip lining and water tubing in Costa Rica. Barb and I were saved from that when mom figured the 45 minute trek through the jungle to get there might be a bit much.
Mom took at least one cruise a year for the past 25 years or so. And she took lots of us with her. I remember when she finally got dad to go on a cruise. It was for their 60th wedding anniversary and Barbara, Jennifer and I got to go on that one. My dad didn't want to bother with letting the crew take his picture when we were first getting on the ship but I told him it was necessary because that's how they identified the bodies in case of an accident. I can still see them both laughing whenever we brought out that picture!
There are a few things mom didn't like and that was doing dishes or cleaning house. She once told Aunt Elia that when she died no one was ever going to say that she kept a clean house. “Hell”, mom would say, would be doing dishes for eternity. And she wasn't going there. Knowing Jesus saved her was a given. When we talked about God and heaven she didn't doubt that Jesus was Lord, that He died for all of us and that He came back from the dead. But she wasn't leaving too soon, while life was still fun. But slowly, God took a few things away. First was last August when she developed macular degeneration, making her favorite past time of READING difficult and then almost impossible. Then her next favorite thing was EATING. The family used to joke that mom could remember places by what she ate there and it was true! She could tel you everything that was served and how it tasted. Slowly she lost her appetite and couldn't even be tempted by ice cream. But when she got out of breath from just TALKING, that did it. As Elaine said, “If she couldn't talk, why bother?” So it was time to go on ahead and get heaven ready for all of us.
I'm going to miss so many things, but mostly calling her up every day on my way home from work and just listening to her talk.