Demo Funeral Home

Marguerite E. Ostrander of Willow Grove, VT, known throughout the valley as "Miss Peg," died at home on the morning of February 6, 2023, at the age of 91.

Born September 22, 1931 in Rutland, VT to the late Henry and Alma Beaudoin, Marguerite was the eldest of six and the first in her family to attend college. She graduated from Castleton State Teachers College in 1953 and began her career that fall in a two-room schoolhouse in North Willow, where she taught grades one through four, banked the woodstove each morning, and drove the school's only station wagon.

She married Robert Ostrander, a dairy farmer, in 1955, and for the next thirty-eight years balanced a classroom in town with a farmhouse of her own. Marguerite taught in the Willow Grove school district for forty-one years, the last nineteen as a third-grade teacher, retiring in 1994 with an estimated 1,200 former students, a number she liked to say she could name if given enough time.

She was named Vermont Teacher of the Year in 1981 and received the Willow Grove Historical Society's Keystone Award in 2004 for her work compiling oral histories of the valley's last working farms — a project she conducted with a cassette recorder and a thermos of coffee, one kitchen table at a time.

Marguerite served as organist at First Congregational Church for over fifty years, ran the town's summer reading program, and never in her life missed a school board meeting. She was a formidable baker, a merciless cribbage player, and a woman who wrote thank-you notes within a day. She kept a birdfeeder outside every window of her house.

In addition to her parents, Marguerite was preceded in death by her husband Robert, her sister Yvonne Beaudoin Hartley, and her brothers Paul and Gerald Beaudoin. She is survived by her daughters, Anne (David) Corliss of Burlington and Ruth Ostrander of Willow Grove; her son, Henry (Lisa) Ostrander of Manchester, NH; her sisters, Claire Beaudoin Nash of Rutland and Louise Beaudoin of Albany, NY; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Walter J. Kinsella of Perryville, PA, known to three generations of customers simply as "Wally," passed away peacefully on October 14, 2022 at the age of 88.

A lifelong resident of Perryville and briefly of Erie, PA, Walter was born January 9, 1934 to the late Francis and Ruth Kinsella, the second of four children. He was predeceased by his brothers Francis Jr. and Raymond, and is survived by his sister Eleanor Kinsella Doyle of Youngstown, OH. As a boy, Walter swept floors and stocked shelves at his father's hardware store on Bridge Street, a building the family would occupy for sixty-one years.

From 1953 to 1955, Walter served in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Fremont, and returned home to marry his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Pallante, in the spring of 1956. He took over Kinsella Hardware in 1961 and ran it until closing the doors in 1997, never once, by his own accounting, turning away a customer who had forgotten their wallet.

Walter served twenty-two years on the Perryville Borough Council, including six as its president, and was a driving force behind the 1978 restoration of the Bridge Street clock tower. He was a member of the Perryville Volunteer Fire Company for over four decades, a member of St. Anne's Parish, and a fixture at the Tuesday morning coffee table at Dot's Diner, where he held court until the week before his passing.

Walter was known for his patience with a stubborn engine, his willingness to lend any tool he owned, and his conviction that most problems could be solved with the correct washer. He loved trout fishing on the Loyalsock, the Pittsburgh Pirates in good years and bad, and Sunday dinners with a full table.

In addition to his parents and brothers, Walter was preceded in death by Dorothy, his beloved wife of 58 years, and by his daughter, Susan Kinsella Marek. He leaves behind his son, Thomas (Jeanne) Kinsella of Perryville; his daughter, Carol (Robert) Vance of Pittsburgh; his son-in-law, Peter Marek of Harrisburg; seven grandchildren; and eleven great-grandchildren, all of whom knew him as Pap.

Obituaries

Adrianne Marquardt

Walter Kinsella

Kirby Upton

Georgine O'Kon