BELLOWS FALLS, Vt. – Gloria Lee MacDuffie died Sunday night, at midnight. She was born to Mary and Floyd Tuttle on Nov. 12, 1929, in Reid, Okla. Her mother Mary, whom we all called Mamaw, had journeyed to her parents’ home from Liberal, Kan., and returned there with Lee when Lee was about two weeks old. So way back then Lee – we all called her Lee – ceased to be an Okie, and became a Kansan prairie farmer with her skilled farming parents. Out on the farm they lived 15 miles from Tribune, the county seat of Greeley County. Lee describes cooking for harvest crews of 15 folks when her mom was ill one year, and also at age 12 driving grain trucks to the elevator. Lee was a leader in her tiny Greeley County High School, editor of its yearbook, and baritone player in its little marching band. She went to Kansas State University, earning a bachelor’s degree, was a baritone player in its marching band, and then married Bill Harper, with whom she had three children. They lived in Braintree and then Walpole, Mass. She was president of the League of Women Voters in Walpole, and also instrumental in promoting educational opportunities and programs at the state prison in Walpole.
After her divorce from Bill Harper, she met Bruce MacDuffie, and they built a life together.
She pursued graduate work in counseling at the University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University, and art therapy training at the Chicago Art Institute, and at Lesley College. She had also become a skilled painter in watercolor and acrylic, and a little oil.
Bruce MacDuffie found her a healing support for his own three children and for himself over the years. She practiced psychotherapy and counseling for 20 or more years. Letters from former clients speak of her as the most skillful and supportive of therapists.
She also was active in the churches her husband pastored, and much loved in those church communities.
Even in retirement, in 2018-2020, she helped host a total of five Honduran asylum-seekers, sharing home and life with them. Najenyi Domingez, who was age 9 when she came to us and is now 16, calls her “grandmother,” expressing the loving relationship that developed.
Lee gave of herself to her children and her communities. Two of her now adult children William Harper III and Karen Davidson succumbed to cancer last spring and summer. Her youngest child David moved from 42 years in Mississippi to live with his mom and step-dad, and was able to be with her in her last days, as was her step-son Robert MacDuffie, whom she nurtured and mothered from age 5 on.
After years of living with dementia, she passed into continuing her journey in God’s loving care. We all give thanks for her loving presence in our lives.
She is survived by her husband Bruce MacDuffie of Westminster, Vt.; step-daughter Elizabeth MacDuffie of Holyoke, Mass., and her husband Mark Miller; son David Harper, now of Westminster, Vt.; step-son Joe MacDuffie and his spouse Donna Reed of Westerville, Ohio; step-daughter Emily Klein of Barrington, R.I.; grandchildren Erin Hamann of Easthampton, Mass., and Erin’s two sons Finnegan and Killian, Jennifer Higdon of Apex, N.C., and her husband Ryan and new baby Mairi (born Christmas Day 2023), Andrew Harper and his wife Catie of Mebane, N.C., Megan Harper of Cary, N.C., Madeleine Darling and her husband Steve Schmelz and their daughter Oona of Philadelphia; grandsons Benjamin and Christopher Davidson of Colorado; and great-grandson John Paul MacDuffie Woodburn of Seattle and his two children Ramona and Llewyn.
Funeral services were held earlier this week, and burial took place at Immanuel Church Cemetery in Bellows Falls.
Arrangements have been entrusted to the care of the Fenton and Hennessey Funeral Home, 55 Westminster Street in Bellows Falls, Vt.