It is difficult, if not impossible, to encapsulate 91 years into a few short paragraphs and you won’t find it here. Want to know about Alice? Ask her family, they will proudly regal you with wonderful stories and several “Alice-isms”; for instance, “Laughter is the BEST medicine” and “Nectar of the gods” referring to her first morning coffee or first evening toast.
Alice’s greatest accomplishments? Her three kids! Daughter Judy Crawford; nurse, wilderness medicine instructor and a former member of the U.S. Women’s National Cycling Team. Son John Jr; world-wide yacht racer, marine engineer, program manager. Son Scott; Boat captain, professional ski instructor and guide, medivac helicopter pilot. Alice was always their greatest cheerleader, counselor, advocate and support system. That same love and affection was shared with her four grandkids; Andrew and Mark Caunter and Samantha and Ryan Crawford as well as Judy’s husband Mark and John’s wife Katy.
Alice was an accomplished manager, from technical writing at General Electric, to writing computer code and managing personnel records at NYNEX (later Verizon), to co-managing several small businesses. Her goal, however, was not corporate “ladder climbing,” it was to reduce or keep her kids out of college student debt and to help finance the family’s quest for adventures. Goals fulfilled; she left the corporate world.
Alice loved the outdoors and nature. An accomplished, aggressive skier she enjoyed the challenge of skiing most of the great mountains of the eastern and western U.S., Canada and the French Alps. However, her greatest ski thrill was helping her kids and grandkids learn to love the sport as much as she did. Also a proficient sailor, Alice cruised and raced the New England coast and delivered boats, along with her husband Jack, up and down the east coast and on the high seas to Bermuda, the Caribbean and back several times. She and Jack were co-owners of seven sailboats. They were members of the Marblehead Yacht Club and the Winnipesaukee Yacht Club. Her bike carried her across many of the bike trails in New England, and her hiking boots lifted her to the summits of many of New England’s peaks including up Mt. Washington with skis strapped to her backpack!
Alice loved to learn, to read and experience nature; walk a beach, fly to and land on a glacier, kayak with seals among tiny icebergs, fly over a volcano, visit a remote native fishing village in Alaska. One of Alice’s favorite plaques read “Interesting women have cobwebs in the corners of their rooms, not in their minds.”
Alice’s 65 years of married life were not dull. She met her husband Jack while she was “ski bumming” as a part-time employee at Wildcat Mountain, Jackson, New Hampshire. They married in 1960 and immediately moved to Coral Gables, Florida, where Jack was finishing his studies under the G.I. Bill. Returning to New England, business and pleasure relocated the family several times, from Lynn to Laconia, New Hampshire, to Chelmsford and on to Marblehead. Upon retirement, a move to “The River House,” a log cabin on the banks of the Saco River in Hearts Location, New Hampshire, followed by a condo also on the Saco River in Bartlett, New Hampshire. And then, a final move to “The Beach House” in Seabrook, New Hampshire, to get back to the sea.
Alice grew up in Swampscott, the daughter of Lillian and Walter Wadden. Her twin sisters Mary and Frances and brother Walter Jr., all preceded her in death. Alice also has many nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles and cousins. She attended Swampscott High School and Emmanual College class of 1955.
A celebration of Alice’s incredible life will be held later at a time when the sun is warm, the sea sparkles and the trees and grass are green.
