Madeline Bunting Was Woman of Great Style

Madeline (Keegan) Bunting, wife of the late Samuel H. Bunting Jr., and mother of Mrs. Bonnie Meras of East Chop, died at Windemere on Saturday after a brief illness. She would have been 95 next week.

She was born in Trenton, N.J., on August 12, 1909, a daughter of Ellen (Carey) Keegan and George Washington Keegan. She attended public schools in Trenton and in 1928 was graduated from Trenton Normal School, now the College of New Jersey, and began her career as an elementary school teacher.

In 1930 she married Samuel Bunting and the couple moved first to Hightstown where Mr. Bunting taught at the Peddie School. Later, they lived in Allentown, Plainfield and Westfield, N.J. The Evergreen School in Plainfield was her favorite among schools where she had taught, and fourth graders were her favorite pupils.

A woman of great style, Madeline Bunting early in life became an accomplished seamstress and never failed to dress herself, her daughter and her granddaughters in fashionable clothes that she sewed herself. She also had a fine sense of interior design and decorated any home in which she lived with just the right curtains that she always made. In Plainfield, she was the head of the art department of the Monday Afternoon Club.

In 1992, the Buntings moved to Thirwood, a retirement home in South Yarmouth, to be close to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren on the Vineyard. The family of their son in law, John E. Meras, had been East Chop seasonal visitors since the 1890s.

But the Buntings traveled much farther afield than the Vineyard, circumnavigating the world three times on the Sagafjord and going on many other cruises. After her husband's death, Mrs. Bunting and her daughter, Bonnie, crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Elizabeth II where Mrs. Bunting's style caught the eye of one of their dining companions, Paul Burrell, who had been butler to Princess Diana. He became something of an advisor and escort to Mrs. Bunting during the voyage. When he later came under fire from the royal family who accused him of keeping objects of Diana's after her death. Mrs. Bunting was one of his staunchest defenders. (He was eventually cleared of all charges.) It was always Madeline Bunting's way to be outspoken.

In 2002, Mrs. Bunting moved to the Vineyard, making her home on East Chop where Bonnie Meras was, by then, a year-round resident.

Mrs. Bunting is survived by her daughter, two granddaughters, Leslie Hurd Tully and Anne Michele (Chele) Reekie, both of West Tisbury, and six grandchildren, Kenneth Badger Hurd 4th, Samuel Bunting Hurd, Colin Ross Hurd, Madeline Keegan Tully, Jennifer Ross Reekie and Sarah Elizabeth Reekie, all of West Tisbury.

A graveside service was held yesterday at the Bunting family plot at the First Presbyterian Church in Ewing, N.J.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Vineyard Nursing Association, P.O. Box 2568, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557.