1925 – 2014

AUBURN — Mary Alice (Bourgoin) Tupper of Durham passed away peacefully Monday, June 16, at the Hospice House of Androscoggin Home Care and Hospice in Auburn.

She was born June 13, 1925, in Lisbon Falls, a daughter of Eugene and Rose Eva (Caron) Bourgoin. She was educated in Lisbon Falls schools, receiving the Daughters of the American Revolution Award for Leadership and graduating as salutatorian from Lisbon Falls High School in 1943.

She married Jackson Tupper on Sept. 12, 1942, three days before he left for the Army Air Force. She worked in the payroll offices of the Worumbo Mill and the Gypsum Mill, both in Lisbon Falls. After the war, she was a full-time homemaker, and she also worked part-time at the soda fountain at Robert’s Drug Store. She also cared for her grandchildren, Melinda and Mitchell, for many happy years. She was a member of the Tupper Family Association of America, and served as its secretary. In her early years, she was a communicant of Holy Family Church in Lisbon Falls, and later attended Shiloh Chapel in Durham for 73 years.

She was an accomplished seamstress and made coats from Worumbo woolens, suit jackets for her husband and most of her daughter’s clothes. She liked to roller skate and ice-skate. For many years, she mixed homemade custard to be churned into ice cream to feed the crowd of people who played volleyball at her home on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. She loved to bake, and her melt-in-your-mouth chocolate fudge and Poinsettia sweet bread were eagerly anticipated at church and family gatherings. She gathered rocks, large and small, from the family gravel pit and made rock pins and rock people for family and friends. She and her husband traveled extensively throughout Europe, Eastern Canada and the Caribbean with their dear friends, Herbert and Gerry Parker. She traveled to Israel, a lifelong dream. She was a devoted Christian who read her Bible through every year, and could quote Bible verses from memory. According to her, her initials A.B.T. stood for “Always Be Truthful.”

She is survived by one daughter, Joan Tupper Anderson, and her husband, Jonathan, of Durham; two sons, Robert and his wife, Rhonda (Stevens), and Jackson II, all of Durham; four grandchildren, Macee Turcotte Damon and her husband, David, of Arlington, Mass., Jason Turcotte and his wife, Jessica (White), of Durham, Melinda Tupper Benevides and her husband, Tom, of New Bedford, Mass., and Mitchell Tupper and his wife, Sarah (Young), of Sabattus; and seven great-grandchildren, Cyndle, Trinity, Talon, and Jazmin Turcotte, Christopher and Courtney Staples, and Aubrey Benevides.

She was predeceased by her husband of 69 years; a son, Thomas; one sister; and two brothers.

The family wishes to thank the wonderful staff and nurses who cared for her at Eliot House and Adams House at the Marshwood Center, “dear Beth” and Barbara at Androscoggin Home Care and Hospice, and the Hospice House staff.  You are invited to share your thoughts, condolences and fond memories of Alice through her guestbook atwww.crosmanfuneralhome.com.