Gloria Lee MacDuffie died Sunday night at midnight. She was born to Mary and Floyd Tuttle on November 12, 1929, in Reid, Oklahoma. Her mother, Mary whom we all called Mamaw, had journeyed to her parents home from Liberal, Kansas 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, baritone player in its little marching band. She went to Kansas State University earning a bachelors 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, Massachusetts. 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 counselling at the University of North Dakote and North Dakota State University, art therapy training at the Chicago Art Institute and at Lesley College. She had also become a skilled painter in water color 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 twenty 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 nine 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 stepdad, and was able to be with her in her last days, as was her stepson, Robert MacDuffie whom she nurtured and mothered from age five 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, Vermont; stepdaughter, Elizabeth MacDuffie of Holyoke, Massachusetts, and her husband, Mark Miller; son, David Harper, now of Westminster, Vermont; stepson, Joe MacDuffie and his spouse, Donna Reed of Westerville, Ohio; stepdaughter, Emily Klein of Barrington, Rhode Island; grandchildren, Erin Hamann of Easthampton, Massachusetts, and Erin’s two sons, Finnegan and Killian; Jennifer Higdon of Apex, North Carolina, and her husband, Ryan and new baby, Mairi born Christmas Day 2023; Andrew Harper and his wife, Catie of Mebane, North Carolina; Megan Harper of Cary, North Carolina; Madeleine Darling and her husband, Steve Schmelz and their daughter, Oona of Philadelphia; grandsons, Benjamin and Christopher Davidson of Colorado; great-grandson, John Paul MacDuffie Woodburn of Seattle, and his two children, Ramona and Llewyn.

In celebration of love in the life of Lee MacDuffie, Sunday, March 10, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM or later in the North Room at the Westminster Institute, Main Street, Westminster Reception, song, meeting each other with good snacks and music and sad joy. This is the counterpart of “calling hours” but with no body present​ Monday Funeral or Service of Christian Burial including Eucharist 10:30 AM-Noon at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church, 313 Main Street, Chester, Vermont, followed by luncheon in Church’s Willard Hall. All are welcome!

On Monday 2:00 PM-2:15 PM Committal or Burial Immanuel Church Cemetery in Bellows Falls.

Arrangements have been entrusted to the care of the Fenton and Hennessey Funeral Home, 55 Westminster Street, Bellows Falls, VT.