Rebecca Boivin, nee Nestor, a longtime resident of Montrose, New York, passed away on Nov. 6, 2023 at the age of 67. Rebecca was the youngest of four children born to Lee Nestor and Dorothy Coller in Pittsburgh, Penn. on March 23, 1956. Her family moved around a lot during Rebecca’s childhood, which may be why she became so adept at making other people feel at home in her presence, as if they had found a new best friend. Here was a person who actually listened to you and who conveyed a kind of understanding that was too incisive to be insincere.
Though Rebecca shunned any sort of pretense with those she cared about, she embraced it as a struggling actress under the tutelage of the renowned acting teacher Uta Hagen in New York City, where she moved after earning her B.A in Theater at Penn State. But the theatrical world, where vanity and competitiveness reigned supreme, was at odds with the values of camaraderie and empathy that had emerged from the moving pieces of her childhood, especially her most cherished years—at a hobby farm in Somerset, Penn.
Though her acting career was short-lived, it did introduce Rebecca to the more rewarding theatrics of the restaurant business—and to Gabriel Boivin, the young Argentinian chef she married on October 11, 1986. When the couple’s Park Slope apartment became too small for their toddler daughter and infant son, Rebecca and Gabriel left the city for Montrose, NY, a quiet hamlet where they would live for nearly 30 years. During that time Rebecca took on a variety of roles, from business manager to QuickBooks specialist to restaurant co-owner to financial consultant—all the while caring for her beloved son and daughter, and eventually her grandchildren, in every spare hour she could muster. She was that rare breed: a ball of boundless energy disguised as a gentle spirit.
In the spring of 2002, Rebecca found a place where her organizational skills and creative thinking could do the most good. She became the financial director and eventually the Director of Finance and Operations for the Sisters of the Divine Compassion in White Plains and worked there, happily, for 20 years. It was within this organization of nuns and lay associates who were dedicated to challenging injustice and empowering the disadvantaged that Rebecca found what she had been searching for in her younger days: a world where humility and generosity reigned supreme, a place where her love of community found purpose.
Rebecca stayed with the sisters through 8 years of cancer treatments, allowing only the people she loved, rather than two types of cancer, to dictate her life. In the summer of 2021 she and Gabriel sold their home in Montrose, where they had helped care for their first granddaughter, and moved to Glenmont, NY, a suburb of Albany close to their daughter’s growing family. Knowing that cancer would soon win her hard-fought battle, Rebecca stopped treatments in the summer of this year. She died peacefully at home, with family by her side, on Nov. 6.
Rebecca is predeceased by her parents as well as her siblings Martha, Elizabeth, and David Nestor. She is survived by her husband, Gabriel, with whom she shared her love and life for almost 40 years, and her devoted children Natalie and Charles Boivin. She was the proud Nana of Charlize Boivin (daughter of Charles) and Connor and Owen Snide (sons of Natalie Boivin and her husband Zach Snide). Rebecca will be profoundly missed by her sister-in-law (or—as Becky loved to say—Soul Sister) Linda Nestor, nieces Sarah and Kate and their families: Sarah and Anthony Fuller and their children Colin and Claire, and Kate and Jay Mahr and their daughter Myla. Rebecca will also be remembered fondly by her Southern Hemisphere family: sisters-in-law Cecilia Boivin and Janine Boivin Delalla, and nieces and nephews Ximena, Florencia, and Joaquín, and Luca and Vincent.
A Memorial Visitation will be held on Sunday, November 19, 2023 from 11 to 1pm at the Edward F. Carter Funeral Home, 170 Kings Ferry Rd., Montrose, NY.
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