1921 – 2003

LEWISTON – Leona M. Kauffman, 82, a resident of Greene since 2001, died Wednesday, Dec. 3, at CMMC of congestive heart failure.

She was born on May 3, 1921, in Shenandoah Valley, Mt. Jackson, Va., the daughter of John Paul Smith and Julia Verl Dellinger. Raised and adopted by her grandparents, James and Martha Kohne Dellinger and great-grandfather, Erasmus Dellinger.

As a youngster she lived in the oldest stone house still standing in the Shenandoah Valley, the Hudson House at Hudson Cross Roads, Va., the house being built by her ancestor, Thomas Hudson. During World War II, she was a riveter at Armstrong in Lancaster, Pa.

On April 12, 1947, she married Charles Webster Kauffman. She resided in Mastersonville, Pa., but came to Maine in 2001 to live with her daughter, Sandy Bates and husband Harold on Bates Dairy Farm in Greene. She enjoyed their Sunday drives and going out to eat.

In her younger years she broke and rode stallions. She was an avid deer and bear hunter and was known as a sharpshooter, successfully hunting several deer. She also enjoyed riding motorcycles and snowmobiles and spending time at her mountain cabin on Big Flat Mountain near Shippensburg in Pennsylvania.

She was a very talented seamstress all of her life. She also sewed quilts for the church and sewed and crocheted clothing for dolls she repaired for children in need having numbered in the thousands. She enjoyed volunteering for many years at the VA Hospital in Coatsville. She was a life member of the VFW Auxiliary in Manheim, Pennsylvania, and also a member of the Ruhls EUB Church also in Manheim, Pennsylvania, where she taught Sunday school.

She is survived by five daughters and their husbands, Sandy and Harold Bates, Susan and Larry Cramer, Rose and Kenneth Wenger, Marie and Lester Nash and Ann Clark; three sons and their wives, Robert Kauffman, Charles and Charlotte Riggleman and Kenneth and Ruth Riggleman; a special granddaughter and her husband, Debby and David Haldane of Warwick, R.I.; two sisters, Ellen Burner and Vivian Ryan; two brothers, David Marston and Douglas Marston.

She was predeceased by her husband, Charles W. Kauffman, a son, Richard Kauffman; sisters, Julia Marston Smith, Charlotte Nicholson and Helen Marston; a brother, George Marston; and a nephew, Michael Clark.

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