Peggy Ann Burrell passed away at the age of 80 on Tuesday, July 11, in the early evening at her home at 603 Plymouth Street, East Bridgewater, Massachusetts. She is preceded in death by her brother, Michael Holmes, and daughter, Marybeth Chapman. She is survived by her three sons, Bruce Chapman, Jason Burrell, and Jared Burrell. She is further survived by twelve grandchildren (Sarah, Stephen, Daniel, Rachael, Sam, Braden, Kevin, Whitney, Bruce, Audrey, Aiden, and Jarvis) and ten great-grandchildren. Peggy died at home in hospice care after a quick downturn in health. In the moment of death, she was held and kissed by children and grandchildren, her home and property filled with nearly all of her adult descendants.
Peggy had a challenging childhood in the Brockton home of Wallace Martin Holmes and Helen Cruise Holmes. Her hero was Genevieve Palmer Eldridge (“Aunt Jenny”), who gave her the warmth, love, inspiration, and stability she deserved. Her refuge was school, which she always found fascinating and where she always excelled. After high school Peggy studied for two years at State College at Bridgewater (now Bridgewater State University) with the dream of becoming a paralegal. Unfortunately, institutions in those days lacked supports for working mothers, and she withdrew.
Peggy’s first husband was Bruce Chapman Sr. They had two children, Marybeth and Bruce, and divorced in 1974. In later life they managed cordial relations at family events.
Peggy’s second husband was Jonathan Day Burrell. They married in 1978. Jonathan left his family in 1993 and they divorced in 1997. Peggy raised their sons Jason and Jared in East Bridgewater and allowed Jonathan to visit whenever he liked and take his sons to New Hampshire on school breaks. Peggy maintained closer ties to the Burrell side of the family than did Jonathan.
In her life Peggy had many professions, including jobs in a shoe factory, as a home health aide, and as a farm laborer. She also spent significant periods of her life as a full-time mother. But what she was principally known for was her legendary bookkeeping. In addition to doing taxes and keeping records for many people in her family, including people on her ex-husband’s side, she was the self-taught office manager for a number of small businesses over the course of her life, with her longest tenure at Little Dryden Enterprises, where she worked from 1988 to 2018. There she managed not only records, payroll, billing, and invoices, but proactively researched complex legal and compliance issues in advance of incoming regulations. She kept the business going through three recessions and retired at the age of 75 when health issues finally slowed her down. Then she trained her replacement from home. “Without Peggy, Little Dryden Enterprises would not exist as it does today.”
Peggy possessed a MENSA level intellect which she turned towards the practical tasks of frugality and survival. She had life-long curiosity, a sharp wit, an easy laugh, and was an engrossing story-teller. An intuitive and accurate judge of character, Peggy played the long-game in life by staying in touch with friends and family for its own sake. In her spare time, she loved yard sales, antiques, crochet, walks, bike riding, watching football and NASCAR, local news, back roads, folk and country music, mystery novels, stories of strong women, coffee and crossword puzzles (usually together), Law & Order, Murder, She Wrote, Fawlty Towers, Are you Being Served?, plain food, sweet deserts, and listening to her police scanner. As a young girl she learned piano and organ. In her self-described dotage she indulged in Gunsmoke reruns and naps. She also enjoyed sitting outside on her deck, soaking up the sun, and watching flowers bloom.
With her cousin Martha Barnhart, Peggy traveled to see distant family or places read about in books. She never flew on a plane.
Raised Catholic, in religious matters Peggy largely kept silent. She was always fascinated by religions, particularly the stranger branches of American Protestantism, and read up on them for fun. She never forced her beliefs or doubts onto her children and encouraged them to find their own answers.
Peggy leaves behind a family of accountants, artists, auto professionals, beauticians, care-takers, culinary experts, entertainers, entrepreneurs, real estate agents, salesmen, school-teachers, small business owners, managers, musicians, tradesmen of every variety, and enjoyers of life’s abundance. Peggy's journey can be described as an upwards ascent from a difficult start to a final summit as the deeply admired matriarch of a well-established and numerous family clan. She accomplished this through a combination of uncanny intelligence, stubbornness, and tenacity softened by honesty, humor, fairness, reserve, wisdom, and grace.
In the game of Scrabble, however, she was ruthless. The opening rounds usually featured one or two seven letter words. From her 100 point lead she would nonchalantly close out the game with defensive plays that blocked the double and triple word tiles and thereby prevented other players from having a chance of catching up over the next hour or two. While the inevitable conclusion slowly worked itself out she would complain about the quality of her letters while achieving every round’s highest score. It was only in the last year or two of her life that she ever acknowledged her use of aggressive board positioning, and that was only with an Irish nod.
According to her clear wishes, there will be no wake and no funeral, although the family greatly appreciates prayers of wholesome intention. There will, however, be a giant party at 603 Plymouth St., East Bridgewater, MA on the date of August 20, rain date August 21. The public is invited to attend between the hours of 1:00 – 6:00 PM.
No doubt Peggy is on a cloud somewhere doing paperwork so others can reach Heaven faster.