BAR MILLS – Barbara Ann (Betts) Pease, 96, resident of Bar Mills, passed away peacefully on Nov. 23, 2023, at the beautiful farmhouse that she shared with her beloved husband of 71 years, Burton “Burt” Weatherbee Pease, Sr., 93, surrounded by four generations of family as they gathered, as they always do, to celebrate Thanksgiving.

She was the loving mother of Deborah J. Pease and husband Laurence Gray of Bar Mills, Pamela J. Pease and husband John Keefe of Westbrook, Burton W. Pease, Jr. and wife Cathy of Bar Mills, and Patricia P. Howell and husband John Howell of Houston. Barb was also the cherished grandmother of 10; and great-grandmother of five.

Born in Saugus, Mass. on July 14, 1927, to Leroy Lewis Betts, Sr. and Eleanor (Cameron), Barb was the fifth of seven children. She spent her early years following her father’s employment through much of New England before her family settled in Buxton. There, she enrolled in Samuel D. Hanson High School, where she played on the women’s basketball team and served on the school council.

In many ways, the story of Barb’s life is the story of her relationship with Burt. Immediately upon laying eyes on Barb on the day that she transferred to his high school in 1946, Burt had the good sense to recognize that he should marry her. A courtship followed, and he proposed at graduation. Theirs was a classic storybook romance, one that spanned nearly eight decades.

Burt and Barb raised their four children in Bangor, where Barb worked in a physical therapy office helping the injured and broken heal. Soon they moved on to adventures in Christmas Valley, Ore. and Anchorage, Alaska.

After Burt retired in 1990, they purchased his childhood home in Bar Mills, an old farmhouse on the Saco River. There, they set to work, Burt painstakingly repairing and restoring each room, Barb filling the home with love and warmth and the smell of her molasses cookies, always perfectly soft, sitting in a cookie jar above the coal-burning stove in their kitchen. At the farm, they created a favorite place for their children and grandchildren. Summer days were spent swimming under Barb’s watchful eye, playing croquet with her in the backyard, and enjoying a sense of love and belonging that her family will always carry with them.

Barb loved writing poetry, solving puzzles, and baking with her family. Behind her kind smile hid a fierce competitor: she famously never let a child, grandchild, or great-grandchild win any of the board or card games that she was so fond of. If you beat “Grammy” in a game of Parcheesi or Rummikub, you could be sure that you earned it.

Barb appreciated everything and everyone around her. She donated her time to food pantries in every town that she lived and spent decades volunteering with Meals on Wheels. She often joked that “getting old is for the birds,” but she approached the end of her life with a degree of humor, grace, and love which we should all aspire to. She lived every day to the fullest and everyone who crossed her path is luckier for it. She was a beautiful, kind-hearted woman, and will be greatly missed and lovingly remembered in all of our hearts.

Barb was a woman of unshakeable faith who spent her final days confident in the knowledge that she will enjoy a reunion with Burt and her loved ones on the other side.

She was a devoted congregant of West Buxton Baptist Church, where a funeral service will be held on Monday, Nov. 27 at 1 p.m. Burial to follow at Tory Hill Cemetery. Dennett, Craig and Pate Funeral Home, 13 Portland Rd., Buxton (Bar Mills) are entrusted with her arrangements.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in Barb’s honor to Meals on Wheels.

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