Memories of a Lifetime

Portland Press Herald (ME)
Date: January 3, 1995

JOAN PEABODY LOUDON

Joan Peabody Loudon, 75, who spent much of her life helping those in need, died Sunday.

She was born in New York City, a natural daughter of Edward C. Johnson and Alice Brandt and adopted daughter of Frederick and Gertrude Peabody.

She grew up in Philadelphia and graduated from the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, Conn., and from Bryn Mawr (Pa.) College.

After her marriage in 1942 to John Frost Eisenbrey, she settled in Phoenixville, Pa. After his death in 1952, she married Adam Loudon in 1955 and they moved to Scotland. They returned to the United States in 1956 and settled in Hollis, where she resided for the rest of her life.

Mrs. Loudon spent her life helping those in need. Family members remember her as a woman whose sense of compassion came across even when she fell on hard times herself.

‘She always felt she was trying to do God’s will, even if she wasn’t quite sure what it was. She felt that helping people with cash wasn’t as important as helping them with love,” said Nancy E. Ashley of Bath, one of five daughters.

”She lived rags and riches and did both with equal nobility. She had a rough life sometimes, but she always seemed to rise above it. No matter what life dealt her, she handled it,” her daughter said.

She was a longtime member of Trinity Episcopal Church, Saco, where she served on the Vestry and the Altar Guild. She delivered Meals on Wheels to the elderly.

She volunteered for the American Cancer Society and Literacy Volunteers and was a member of the Saco Valley Civic Association. She also served on the Hollis planning and zoning boards. She was a member of the board of directors of the Salmon Falls Education Center in Hollis, where she taught foreign languages.

Mrs. Loudon also fostered in her children a love of art, music and literature that they continue to cherish. ”That is probably the greatest treasure she could have given us,” her daughter said.

Another daughter, Alison L. Bemis of Hollis, said Mrs. Loudon’s favorite author was C.S. Lewis. She also loved classical music and was an avid listener of National Public Radio.

Her second husband died in 1971.

Also surviving are a son, Adam Loudon of Somersworth, N.H.; three other daughters, Louise E. Wakefield and Jean Loudon, both of Hollis, and Vida L. Fasulo of Limington; a brother, Peter A.B. Widener III of Sheridan, Wyo., and Palm Beach, Fla.; and 13 grandchildren.

A service in celebration of her life will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at Trinity Episcopal Church in Saco. Burial will be at St. Peter’s Church in Great Valley, Paoli, Pa., later this year. Arrangements are by Dennett-Craig and Pate Funeral Home, Saco. ###

This is an unusual obituary for its first lines. I do not remember ever seeing an obituary that spelled out the natural parents, both of them, and the adoptive parents in the opening sentences.

Gertrude Douglass divorced Frederick Peabody and married Peter Widener. Joan’s debutante ball in December 1936 was provided by the Wideners at the Bellevue Stratford in Philadelphia, complete with an orchestra of 75 musicians in Hungarian costume. 1500 people attended.

I had wondered what happened to Joan Peabody. She married Capt. John Frost Eisenbrey shortly after her graduation from Bryn Mawr. In 1952, she was a widow with two young children. The Probate records for John Eisenbrey (a grandnephew of Robert Frost, the poet), did not give the children’s names. I tracked down Betty Eisenbrey, a great-aunt by marriage, who remembered two children, Nancy and Louise. When John Eisenbrey’s mother, Agusta, needed help in her old age, it was Nancy who came to stay with her grandmother until arrangements could be made for her to be moved to a care facility. Betty did not know where Nancy lived.

Thanks to the internet and obituaries now available online, I found the above. Nancy says in the obituary that her mother lived rags and riches, and that she did. She was raised in high society, married, and ten years later was widowed with two young children and no resources except her home. Her mother was a great help to her during that time I am sure.

I am happy to know that Joan found not only a place for herself and her family, but a place where she could employ her considerable empathy and energy helping others. One could say she did her parents proud – all of them.

Joan’s adoptive lineage: (Joan-7, Gertrude Peabody Widener-6, Curtis-5, John P.-4, James-3, John-2, Alexander Douglass-1)