Lois Margaret Remmer died peacefully at home on Saturday, June 14. She was 95. She was predeceased by her husband Henry (Hank) Remmer in 1997.
Lois was born at home on August 26, 1918 to Dr. John Leopold Bauer and Marie Jurgens Bauer. She was raised in Brooklyn, and was the youngest of seven children. Lois attended Packer Collegiate Institute and received a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Brown University in 1939, by which time she and her closest sibling, Betty, had already met their future husbands, who were also close brothers.
Lois and her husband Hank Remmer lived in Glastonbury, Conn., for 45 years. After raising a family and pursuing a career as a puppeteer around Connecticut to raise money for children’s services, Lois returned to school, receiving a master’s degree in English from Trinity College in 1967. For the next 18 years she taught English at Glastonbury High School.
As a longtime lover of Martha’s Vineyard, Lois and her husband bought their property in Waterview Farms in the 1960s, designed and built their house in 1983, and moved there in 1986. For the next nine years she taught literature, writing and women’s studies at the Nathan Mayhew Seminars, and in 1987 she joined three other women to co-found Martha’s Vineyard Literacy Volunteer Program, where she was an active member, both as a secretary and as a tutor for ten years. For 25 years, Lois was an active member of multiple book clubs, play-reading groups, the NAACP, and The Want to Know Club. An avid reader, she also kept a daily journal all her adult life, loved to write, and every letter she wrote prefaced her optimism and the beauty of the day where she was, whether traveling with her husband, or at home enjoying her water view.
She wrote her family story of growing up in Brooklyn, summering in Bayport, Long Island on the Great South Bay, with fun and poignant stories of her beloved sister Betty, with whom she had a very special bond all her life.
Surviving her are her four children, Maida Remmer of North Palm Beach, Fla., Lisa Remmer of San Francisco, Calif., Henry Remmer and his wife Mary of Wilmington, N.C., and William Remmer and his wife Cherie of Anchorage, Alaska, and three grandchildren, Miranda, Caitlin and Grant.
In honor of her memory, please perform a random act of kindness for a neighbor and raise a toast to friendship.
Donations in honor of her memory can be sent to Adult & Community Education of Martha’s Vineyard (ACE MV), P.O. Box 1835, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557, or Mass Audubon’s Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary, P.O. Box 494, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568.
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