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ROSEMARY COFFIN |
Rosemary Coffin; expanded elderly-care choices in N.H.
Well before hospice care became widely available in New England, Rosemary Coffin had introduced the concept in Exeter, N.H., in 1978. As a hospital volunteer, she had seen the anguish of patients near death, when their loved ones’ visits ended. She knew she had to do something about it.
“Mother was a person who loved doing things to help others, loved music, and loved life,’’ said her son, Peter Douglas, of Kingston, N.H.
During War II, he said, she left Radcliffe College after a year to work at Harvard’s radar laboratory in her native England and volunteered as an ambulance driver during the German Blitzkrieg. “She was absolutely fearless,’’ said her daughter, Sarah Coffin Klebnikov O’Connor, of New York City.
Mrs. Coffin, whose volunteer work won many honors, among them a Point of Light designation from President George H.W. Bush, died of stroke and heart failure Feb. 22 at her home in RiverWoods at Exeter. She was 88.
Not only was she founder of the Exeter area’s now very active hospice program, she and Maryanna Hatch were responsible for the creation in 1994 of RiverWoods at Exeter, a continuing care retirement community.
“Rosemary had enormous impact on hundreds of people,’’ said Cathleen Toomey, vice president at RiverWoods. “Both of them had older parents and didn’t like what was available to them outside of nursing homes and relying on their children.’’
Mrs. Coffin showed her compassion in many ways. As the wife of a faculty member at Phillips Exeter Academy, Mrs. Coffin was surrogate mother to many students living away from home for the first time.
“Rosemary cared for you as a person, not for your academic achievements,’’ said Vincent DeSantis, a Wellesley psychiatrist who was a student there 45 years ago. “She was the only faculty wife to address the student body, and encouraged us to acknowledge one another as we passed. ‘Don’t stare down at the path,’ she would say. ‘Look up and say, ‘Hello.’ ’’
In addition to all her volunteer work, Mrs. Coffin found the time to write two books, “Ministry of Grace: An Account of the Life of the Reverend Frederica Mitchell,’’ in 1983, and “The Garland of Philippa,’’ in 2001.
Rosemary H. (Baldwin) Coffin was born in Sussex, England, to an English mother and American father. Her father, Raymond P. Baldwin of Concord, was a Boston lawyer. She graduated from Concord Academy in 1940 and entered Radcliffe.
In 1949, while working in Cambridge, England, she met an American graduate student, David Coffin, who was reading classics at King’s College, Peter said. They married that year and returned to the United States, where he taught at Smith College in Northampton. After three years, he became head of Phillips Exeter’s classics department.
In Exeter, Mrs. Coffin’s volunteer work spanned 50 years. In 1954, she founded the Rockingham Choral Society, was president of the Exeter Players from 1956 to 1959, and volunteered in the Exeter Hospital X-ray room.
In the 1970s, she was a military draft counselor, and a member of the vestry at Christ Church in Exeter. As a volunteer, she supported low-income housing, and when her daughter wanted to join the Brownies, she became a leader and found uniforms for girls who couldn’t afford them.
“She saw all these children in need,’’ and started a child and family service in the area that was eventually absorbed by the state program, her daughter said.
When she and Hatch, whose husband was a professor at the University of New Hampshire, were still too young to think of retirement living, they wanted to make it more pleasant for others with a continuing-care retirement home. Unlike regular retirement homes, continuing care guarantees resident housing and health care for life.
“We talked to developers and financial backers for years before we got any funding,’’ Hatch said. “Rosemary was a very organized person, which I was not. She dug into the history of things and got a good grasp on them. She was an inspiration to us all.’’
Years later, Mrs. Coffin still inspired former Phillips students, DeSantis said. “After I left school, Mrs. Coffin sent me a postcard on my birthday for 35 years,’’ he said. Looking to say “thank you for caring,’’ he sent her flowers on Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day for the last 15.
In addition to her husband, son, and daughter, Mrs. Coffin leaves three step-grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. today at Christ Church in Exeter.
Gloria Negri can be reached at negri@globe.com. 
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.