1947 – 2015

AUBURN — Weda “Cookie” Eileen Murch, 67, of Auburn, died early Sunday morning, April 19, at the Androscoggin Hospice House in Auburn, surrounded by her loved ones, following a brief battle with cancer that wasn’t able to defeat her sense of humor that she maintained to the end.

She was born on May 27, 1947, in Lewiston, a daughter of Richard and Lillian May (Holt) Fortier. She attended Norway schools. After multiple knee surgeries as a young woman prevented her from graduating, she proudly returned to Oxford Hills High School to earn her diploma in 2001.

Cookie had worked at the Bridgton Knitting Mill and as a teacher’s assistant in the Oxford Hills Adult Education Program, but her greatest work was as a loving homemaker to her family.

She was a very talented short-story writer, particularly tales of her as a young girl on her Aunt Belle Holt’s farm in North Norway. She also enjoyed drawing, playing cards, dancing, the company of her family and friends and her membership in the Universalist Church in Norway. She was also an avid collector of Native American and Maine lighthouse items.

Cookie is survived by two daughters, Cindy Foley and her husband, Steven, of Norway, and Billie Johnson and her husband, Jay, of Auburn; a son, Richard Murch and his partner, Norm Jacques, of Auburn; three grandchildren, Christopher Murch of South China, Ashlee Kitchen and her husband, Gene, of Bangor, and Jordyn Rose Johnson of Auburn; a great-grandson, Wyatt Thomas Kitchen of Bangor; three sisters, Linda Avery and her husband, Ken, of Bridgton, Becky Harmon and her husband, Paul, of Bridgton, and Kimmie Fortier and her companion, Michael Uhl, of Pennsylvania; a brother, Jim Fortier of Bridgton; her stepmother, Shirley Fortier of Hamilton, N.J.; many brothers and sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews.

She was predeceased by her parents; her husband, Roger Murch, in 2003; a brother, Scotty Fortier; a granddaughter, Lindsay Marie Johnson; and a sister-in-law, Sue Fortier.

Tributes may be shared with her family at www.oxfordhillsfuneralservices.com.

Copy the Story Link