Annabelle P Bolduc

Annabelle was born as the second child of James Alexander Powers and Annie Mae (Landsburg) Powers one month after the end of the Great War in 1918 and during the Spanish Flu pandemic. She grew up in Lewiston, Maine with her brother James and younger sister Blanche and fondly remembered having family picnics under a tree in their yard or day trips to the coast and to their friend’s farm. She often related how they sometimes rode in a carriage to church but mostly walked the three miles to town for school, using her snowshoes in the winter and leaving them stuck in the snowbank at the foot of the hill when she returned home. Despite the great depression she thought of her childhood as happy and carefree with close friends and family. She graduated from high school in 1937 and went to work for one of the shoe factories the Lewiston-Auburn area was noted for, where she quickly moved from the manufacturing floor to the office and handwrote all the weekly pay checks for the workers. When the factory went out of business, she went to New York City to study to become a dental assistant. She lived and worked there until returning to Lewiston to work at the Continental Mills, a company making textiles used for uniforms in the 2nd World War. She was very sad when her fun-loving father died in the fall of 1944. She continued to work at the mill and contribute to the support of her mother and sister while saving to go to nursing school. She worked weekends at a restaurant in Old Orchard Beach where patrons would pay ten cents for a sandwich and if she got a tip, it would only be a few pennies. Regardless, she saved enough from this extra work to buy the uniforms and other wardrobe she would need when she entered nursing school at Mercy Hospital in Portland, Maine. During her time at nursing school, she met and married Robert Johnston and in 1946 her son (Johnathan) Marc Johnston was born. She completed her State Boards to become a nurse in the winter of 1948 and moved back to Lewiston and worked at St Mary’s Hospital and then at Central Maine General in the maternity ward. She met Roland Bolduc, a sergeant in the US Airforce, and they and married in April of 1954 and moved to Spokane Washington where her mother joined the family for all their future adventures including four years in England and trips to the Holy Land and Paris. One year later her daughter, Annabelle MaryMae was born, but she was back on the east coast in Chicopee Massachusetts for the birth of her son, Doran Helaire in 1957. Annabelle dedicated her life to caring for others, she worked as head nurse in the Maternity Ward in Holyoke Massachusetts and in Fort Lewis, Washington caring for soldiers returning from Vietnam. She often spoke of how blessed she felt to be able to care for her mother and lovingly sacrificed to care for her 13 years after a stroke. Her hardest experience was Doran’s death in the Persian Gulf. He was killed in action aboard the USS Stark when his ship was hit by a missile fired by an Iranian pilot. After his death in 1987, Annabelle and Roland purchased five acres in Snohomish, built their dream home and became part of the community. She was grateful to spend the last 30 years of her life close to Marc and Kris who helped her stay in her home after Roland passed away. Annabelle loved life and family and everyone who met her were blessed by her loving and caring spirit. She is survived by her daughter Annabelle and husband Tom Cocchiaro, son Marc Johnston and wife Kris, grandchildren Jeff and Annie Johnston, Jordan and Adam Cocchiaro, and great-grandchildren Brooke, Denver, Harley Johnston, and Colin Lombardo.