MEREDITH- - - Margaret Elinor Paine, 96 of 17 Lake Country Road, died peacefully on Monday, August 5, 2019 at Forestview Manor.
Margaret was born on January 17, 1923 in Ottawa, Canada, daughter of a firefighter, Carlton C. Dunning and his wife, Marion Robertson McQueen Cochran Dunning.
She was one of 8 children and at age 18 joined the Royal British Navy as a Wren, and was one of three women transported to Scotland by submarine during WWII where she was stationed.
There she met her future husband, Louis H. Paine, a pharmacist mate in the US Navy, at a dance.
After the war in 1946 she married and moved to Grafton, Massachusetts and started a family. While raising her 4 children, she felt compelled to fight and raise money for causes she deemed unjust. An example: In the mid 1950s, although not eligible to vote herself, she started the first League of Women Voters in Massachusetts.
In the 1960s she moved to Sherborn, Ma. While looking for art work to decorate her new home she would often remark “I can do better” so she took up painting and became an artist and did much better. In the 1970s she took up the piano and went back to school. She took a course at a small community college and ended up teaching the course the second year. The third year she was offered jobs at many Boston hospitals and thus began a career in the medical profession that lasted 35+ years.
Margaret worked at The New England Baptist Hospital in the OR. As an OR Tech she developed and taught a lifesaving procedure which is still practiced in most hospitals today.
During those years she was the Director for the Sherborn Players, a local theatre group. She sang in the Pilgrim Church Choir and in the World Choir in Austria. She traveled extensively around the world with her church group, family and friends and vacationed on the lake and at the ocean. ‘Mag’, as her Canadian family called her, loved to have her visit. Where everyone shared a good laugh over who could yodel or arm wrestle the best.
She looked and acted much younger than her years and since she would never tell anyone her age, finally retired at 85.
In 2010 Margaret moved to Meredith, NH to live near her family and continued to entertain all who met her with her funny stories, and as always, left them with a chuckle or two and a big smile on their face.
What I hope you take away from reading this is how much our mother loved her family and was loved, she never stopped learning, enjoyed people and living life.
Margaret is survived by a son Adam Paine; daughters, Cheryl Groen, Martha Billings and Amy Paine; 7 grandchildren, James, Rich, Lisa, Brew, Doug, William and Daniel; 3 great grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. In addition to her parents, she is predeceased by her husband, Louis H. Paine, grandson, Tom, brothers, Gary, Bunny and Ray, and by her sisters Grace, Marion, Dodie, and Helen.
There will be no calling hours or services.
For those who wish, the family suggests that memorial donations be made to Lakes Region Visiting Nurses Association, 186 Waukewan Street, Meredith, NH 03253.
Wilkinson-Beane-Simoneau-Paquette Funeral Home & Cremation Services, 164 Pleasant Street, Laconia NH is assisting the family with the arrangements. For more information and to view an online memorial go to www.wilkinsonbeane.com.