Obituary of Alice Haskell Fleming

Alice Haskell Fleming, 94, passed from this world on Nov. 17. Alice lived in the Damariscotta area for the last 31 years, and previous to that her life was pleasantly entangled with Maine for many more years. Her family had a summer place on Dutch Neck from about 1935 to 1950. Alice loved it there and always wanted to come back. Alice was born in Baltimore, Md. in 1920. She grew up in Amherst, Mass. where her father ran the Agricultural Experiment Station at UMass. She went to high school in Mamaroneck, N.Y. and she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Oberlin College in 1942. Alice was kind, compassionate, frugal, very independent, and uncompromising about her principles. Some would describe this as being pigheaded. She was hard on people who were unkind to animals, or who were guilty of using bad grammar. As far as was known, no one ever beat her at a game of Scrabble. After college, she worked as an executive secretary for 17 years in New York City. Then she moved to Denver, Col. to marry William Noble Fleming and to teach kindergarten for five years. Eventually, after a divorce, she moved to Maine to build and live in her dream house. She was a founding member of the local Unitarian Fellowship, and she was known for writing acerbic and grammatically correct letters to the newspaper. Alice is survived by two nephews and their families who live in New York State. She was active in many liberal organizations such as those fighting for the environment and seeking to control overpopulation. She loved words, singing, hiking, houses, birds, chipmunks, and cats. Her family likes to think that she was the one who always heard the music. Services will be private. Anyone wishing to make a memorial donation should direct it to the Lincoln County Animal Shelter, PO Box 7, Edgecomb, ME 04556. Funeral arrangements were handled by Direct Cremation of Maine, 182 Waldo Ave., Belfast.