After a wonderful life of ninety-three years, Jean Patricia Raymond passed away on March 25, 2020. Jean and her husband of over seventy-two years, Robert G. Raymond, were long-time residents of Milford. Jean was born in Worcester, the daughter of Carl and Doris Semon, and spent her early years in Auburn, Massachusetts. Jean graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and married Bob in 1948. They first lived in Boylston and Holden, Massachusetts, and then, in 1957, moved to Milford, where they raised their three sons, Daniel, James, and Jonathan. They stayed in the Milford area for forty-one years, until, in 1998, they moved to Chatham, Massachusetts.

Jean believed in the importance of participating in her community. In Milford, she served as a trustee of the Wadleigh Memorial Library, where she pushed to allow books of social controversy to be displayed on the shelves. She was a trustee and treasurer of the Milford Hospital Association and a high school library volunteer. Jean and Bob were members of the First Congregational Church. In Chatham, Jean was on the Friends of the Chatham Council on Aging Board of Directors and a greeter at the Chatham Marconi Maritime Center, and she and Bob spent countless hours searching for and assigning numbers to houses for the Chatham Police Department’s 911 Triad project. Jean and Bob have been active in the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House of Chatham. Jean was an avid gardener and lover of books, and she instilled in her children an appreciation of art and music, as well as the value of hard work. Her many friends and neighbors, both in New Hampshire and on Cape Cod, enjoyed her sense of humor, quiet charm, and attentiveness to others.

In addition to Bob and their three children, members of Jean’s family include Jean’s sister, June Ann Fish, of Albuquerque, New Mexico; two daughters in law, Jane (Glidden) Raymond and Linda (Carpenito) Raymond; six grandchildren, Jennifer Whitehouse and Anne, Peter, Lindsey, Justin, and Ethan Raymond; and one great grandchild, Cooper Whitehouse. Jean’s sister in law, Dorothy Raymond, lives in Chatham, and many cousins, nieces, and nephews of Jean and Bob live on Cape Cod and in Maine and Florida.

A memorial celebration of Jean’s life will be scheduled later in the year. Jean’s family requests that donations in her memory be made to the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House of Chatham or the Chatham Food Pantry.