Priscilla Bernadette Desires, former Dining Service staff member from 1965 to 1992 and honorary member of the Bowdoin Alumni Association, died on June 27, 2018, in Brunswick, Maine.
(The following was originally published in the Times Record):
Priscilla Bernadette Despres, ninety, passed peacefully at her home on Wednesday, June 27, 2018. Priscilla was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, on August 19, 1927, the daughter of the late Joseph and Irene (Labbe) Gagnon. After graduating from Brunswick High School in 1946, she married Leopold C. Despres on June 26, 1948. Priscilla was a full time homemaker and eventually worked for Bowdoin College in the Moulton Union dining service facility for twenty-seven years retiring in 1992.
Priscilla enjoyed being outdoors as seen by her beautiful flower, and bountiful fruit and vegetable gardens which she generously shared with others in the form of her jams, pies, pickles, muffins, fresh produce, and her flower plant sales. She loved to saltwater fish aboard their boat, the Linda Gal, which was moored in Mackerel Cove, Bailey Island where family and friends enjoyed years of fishing and cruising among the Casco Bay islands and along the Maine coastline. In 1969, a rustic cabin was purchased in Andover, Maine, where Priscilla and Leo enjoyed snowmobiling in the immediate area, in Canada, and at Yellowstone National Park.
In 1973, for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, Priscilla and Leo went on an African safari and in 1993, they took the first of three cross country trips with their camper and dog to Alaska, the southern US states and to California visiting various state and National Parks. In her later years, Priscilla enjoyed various craft and knitting projects as well as watching her favorite NASCAR drivers, Dale Earnhardt Senior and Junior.
Priscilla was a communicant of St. John the Baptist Church. She was also a past president and charter member of the Brunswick Emblem Club #323 and a member of the Brunswick People Plus Center. She enjoyed the friendship of many who will miss her warm and quick smile, kind words, and good spirit.
Surviving are her three children; Linda from Falmouth, MA, Richard and his wife, Michelle, of Portland, Maine, and Robert of Topsham, Maine. She is also survived by a brother, Leo, of Brunswick.
Priscilla was predeceased by her husband of sixty-three years, a sister, Beatrice, and two brothers. Rudy and Maurice.