AUBURN – Crescentia Zahn Griffiths, 92, of Schooner Estates, 200 Stetson Road, Auburn, died Wednesday, Nov. 9, at the Hospice House on Stetson Road.

She was born in Hingham, Mass., on June 16, 1913, the daughter of Gertrude Ann Holt Zahn and Harry Frederick Zahn. She attended school in Hingham and then attended and graduated in 1934 from Bates College in Lewiston.

She began teaching in Berwick, teaching French and Latin and coaching the girls basketball team. She taught for several years there and then became a professional Girl Scout for a couple of years, before marrying Laurence Allan Griffiths on June 24, 1939. She left teaching when she married Laurie and became a homemaker and mother of three children, Ann, Donna and Wayne, who survive her.

Along with her husband, she operated the L.A. Griffiths Real Estate and Insurance Agency in Eliot for 15 years and during this time she returned to teaching sixth grade at the Laura V. Dame School in South Eliot. Among other things during her time in Eliot, she was the superintendent of the Methodist Sunday school in South Eliot, was a Brownie and Girl Scout leader, sang in the Methodist choir and generally kept active with her three growing children, keeping a huge garden from which she canned many hundreds of jars of vegetables and had many fruit trees and vines from which she made jams, jellies and just canned the fruits for winter use.

She and her husband and family moved to Orono for about 15 years, before retiring to a large farm in Otisfield, where she entered whole heartedly into the church community of the Casco Village Church and was active in Literacy Volunteers. She retained her membership in the United Methodist Church in Orono. For entertainment she played bridge, cribbage and acey-deucey with friends and her husband of many years.

Survivors include her three children, one son, Wayne Allan Griffiths of Lewiston, two daughters, Ann G. Bearce of Raymond and Donna L. Mann of Columbus, Ohio; three grandchildren, Nicholas Allan Bearce, Alice Marie S. Wolf and Scott Allan Griffiths; three great-grandchildren, Jillian Carrin Griffiths, Clayton Allan Griffiths and Jackson Ryan Griffiths; and two great-grandchildren to be born any day, Elizabeth Hope and Laura Ann Bearce.

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