FARMINGTON – Verna Frances Swift, 94, died after a brief illness on Saturday, Nov. 18, at her home, The Pierce House, a home for senior living in Farmington.

She was born March 30, 1912, in Albany, N.Y., the daughter of LeRoy F. and Lila B. (Hutchins) Swift. The family lived in Worcester and Bourne, Mass.

After the death of her father in 1918, and then of her mother in 1922, she went to live with her maternal grandmother in Stoughton. Her summers were spent with her father’s family in Bourne. She graduated from Stoughton High School in 1930, and from Boston University in 1935. She then attended Katherine Gibbs secretarial school for a year.

She worked briefly as a secretary and began a teaching career in 1937, teaching in the high schools in Northborough and then in Sandwich, Mass. She continued teaching at Weylister Junior College in Connecticut; Lyndon Institute in Vermont and Bryant College in Rhode Island. In 1944, she moved to Bethel, where she then taught at Gould Academy for 30 years, retiring in 1974 to live in Farmington.

She enjoyed traveling all of her life. In the summer of 1954, she traveled with three friends from Maine to California, Oregon and Washington. She also traveled to Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and Hawaii. She was an avid amateur photographer and chronicled the lives of family and friends for more than a half-century.

For many years, she processed her own black-and-white photographs and compiled an extensive slide and print archive. She also enjoyed mountain climbing and skiing and in retirement, tennis.

She volunteered at Franklin Memorial Hospital for more than 20 years. In her 70s and 80s, she won numerous medals in the Maine Senior Games. She joined the fitness center at the Univeristy of Maine in Farmington, where she participated in weightlifting and exercise classes until the last few months of her life.

In 1998, she moved to The Pierce House. There, at the age of 89, she bought a computer, which she used to produce a newsletter for the residents called “Happenings At…”

She is survived by her niece, Sandra Mailhot of Lyman; her cousins, Gladys M. Burgess, Deborah M. Burgess, Blanche E. Cody, Paul S. Baillie and Stephen A. Baillie, all of Bourne; Darlene Mooar and the The Pierce House family; the Richard B. Gould family of Farmington; her lifelong friend, Priscilla G. Swain of North Falmouth, Mass.; and many friends.

In addition to her parents, she was predeceased by her brother, Gordon F. Swift of Lyman, formerly of Bourne.