AUBURN – Alberta Irene Coolidge Bessey passed away peacefully at the age of 82 at the Androscoggin Hospice House on Feb. 22, 2024. She was born on May 4, 1941, in Bethel, Maine, the daughter of Leland Buchard Coolidge and Edith Louise Kimball Coolidge.

She attended Gould Academy. She graduated from a GED program at Rumford High School and completed an associate degree in accounting from Husson College.

Alberta, nicknamed “Pat”, married Harold Merton Bessey and they enjoyed 62 years of marriage together. They resided in a home that Harold and his grandfather, Walter Scott Stearns built in Rumford Corner on the Bessey potato farm where they raised their three children.

She was a stay-at-home mom while the children were young. She then worked at the Rumford Center School in the kitchen, as well as the Kimball Motel. She later worked for Thom McCann Shoes in Norway, Bass Shoe in Rumford, the American Ski Company in Bethel, and then the Maine Department of Transportation in Dixfield until she retired.

Pat loved cooking and baking for her family and others. She sewed all her children’s clothes until she went to work full-time. She had a passion for knitting mittens all through her life for family, friends, and those in need that she donated. She was a generous woman with a heart of gold. She enjoyed gardening and watching all the birds that frequented the bird feeders that Harold built. After retirement she was an avid reader of many kinds of books.

Survivors are her daughters, Barbara Bessey from Billings, Montana, Bonnie Hutchins and husband John from Standish, Maine, son Walter Bessey and wife Christy from Lebanon, Ohio; grandchildren, Matthew Hutchins, Andrew Bessey, Kayce Lawyer-Bessey, and Katelyn Seward and husband Donovan; great-granddaughter Addie Seward, great-grandsons, Jackson Elijah Seward and Bentley Michael Scott White; brothers, Robert Coolidge of East Bethel and Phillip Coolidge and wife Linda of Weld.

She was predeceased by her husband and her parents, sisters, Serena Enman and Cynthia Cox; grandsons, Craig Allen Hutchins and Jordan Scott Bessey; father-in-law Merton Irving Bessey and mother-in-law Edith Ava Stearns Bessey; sister-in-law Adelia Bessey Houghton and husband Robert; brother-in-law Irving Walter Bessey and wife Norma.

A graveside memorial service is planned for this summer for Pat and Harold Bessey for family and close friends of the family at East Bethel Cemetery.

Online condolences may be shared with her family at http://www.meaderandson.com.

In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to the Androscoggin Hospice House, 236 Stetson Road, Auburn, ME 04210.

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