Roxy Rose Maxfield

1938 - 2025

Roxy Rose Maxfield

Thetford Center, VT - Roxy Rose Maxfield, beloved sister, aunt, wife, mother, grandmother and great grandmother of Thetford Center, VT passed away peacefully at home on February 9, 2025.

Roxy was born to George and Roxy Kendall on April 29, 1938 in Freedom, Maine, after the loss of their first born child, a girl, Mary Eleanor, who had been born November 29, 1936 but then, tragically, died just months later on January 1, 1937.

Roxy and three more children were raised on the family farm in the Braintree Hill neighborhood of Braintree, Vermont where her lifelong love of horses was born. It was there that she became an accomplished horse woman, as capable of holding her seat bareback as she was in the saddle, and even doing tricks such as riding standing tall upon the backs of her mounts. She had a set of silver tack too, a bridle and saddle that she would use as she rode in local parades.

Roxy was quite skilled with a needle and thread, a home sewer, knitter, quilter, seamstress and dressmaker, utilizing knot work, hand embroidery, crewel work, ruching and smocking to turn out all manner of hand pieced and machine sewn projects from exquisitely tailored everyday clothing and formal wear to curtains and drapery. She plied her hand at needlepoint, beadery, braided and latch hooked rugs, pillows, pot holders, placemats and pieced quilts of every size, beautifully made warming knitted hats, mittens and gloves, stitched delightful stockings, intricately detailed ornaments, felt and hand pinned ribbon wrapped ones, and, with the help of her children made simple walnut shell ornaments, paper chains, snowflakes and strings of popcorn year after year to decorate house and home and hang upon the family's Christmas trees.

She was a fantastic cook, an accomplished cake decorator, an avid gardener, an outdoorswoman and a crack shot who loved the north country in all it's seasons, loved leaf-peeping, camping, fishing, hunting, snowmobiling and snow-shoeing.

Roxy married, she and her first husband had four daughters together. Family was everything to Roxy. She loved her girls dearly, whole heartedly and fiercely. After several moves together, and, with the end of her first marriage Roxy packed up her four daughters and moved to Georgia Plains, Vermont, where she made a home on a few acres on the fringe of her parent's 43 ½ acre farm for the five of them and was once again able to have a horse of her own and a pony for her girls. When she wasn't at work, she and the girls helped on the farm with the livestock and field crops, the harvests, putting food by and haying. With that work done Roxy rode horseback, took her girls on donkey cart rides, and to the drive-in theatre, picnicking, swimming, fishing, sledding, skating, and whenever possible, on camping trips both closeby and out to Maine.

On June 16, 1979 Roxy married Melvin Maxfield and moved to Post Mills, Vermont. Their union created a blended family of ten with eight children. Roxy and Mel built a life together, centered around family and their local church, with her serving the community in a number of ways including volunteering at the polls during elections and serving as Justice of the Peace, officiating at the weddings of at least ten couples including her own sister's and her eldest daughter's. Together Roxy and Mel put in years of service with Thetford's FAST Squad. Roxy was the driving force behind the development of the Upper Valley Ambulance Service where she and Mel, by then already EMT's, served as emergency responders, also covering special events throughout seven Upper Valley counties. Roxy frequently took on the ambulance's neonatal transport runs from Dartmouth Hitchcock Memorial to Boston. Roxy and Mel were trainers for local Hunter Safety programs, were active in the Christian Motorcycle Assoc. for which she served as Road Captain on more than one occasion, Americade too and, VAST, helping maintain trails and snowmobiling. Roxy loved to go antiquing, frequenting farmer's markets and local fairs. Roxy and Mel visited Amish country, the Grand Ole Opry and every year they could of their 45 years together, they attended the Fryeburg Fair in Maine and went on countless other camping and fishing trips with family, her own mother, her mother's mother, brothers and sisters, their children and grandchildren. While the cross-country camping trip to Alaska with dear friends was a highpoint of their time together, it was family and getting them together, anytime, but especially for dinners and holidays, gatherings that featured Roxy's fabulous cooking and baking, with the house full of family and friends, the people she loved that meant the world to her.

Roxy is survived by her sister, Christine Lebrecque, husband, Melvin; daughters, Marielyn Chadwick, Cheryl Chadwick, Pamela Flaherty, Julia Eaton; step-children, Edward Maxfield and wife, Susan, Cynthia Johnson and husband, Richard, Eric Maxfield and wife, Bonnie; 15 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren.

She is predeceased by her infant elder sister, Mary Eleanor Kendall; brothers, George Joseph Kendall Jr., Charles Kendall, first husband, Lee Serman Chadwick III, step-son, Melvin Maxfield Jr. and granddaughter, Katharine Eaton.

There will be a funeral service for Roxy on May 10th, 2025 at 1:00 p.m. at the Thetford Baptist Church, 97 Church Lane, East Thetford, VT. Please feel free to attend if you would like to pay your respects.

The Boardway and Cilley Funeral Home, Chelsea, VT is in charge of arrangements. A private message of sympathy for the family can be shared at www.boardwayandcilley.com.