Dorothy Swanson

1930 - 2020

Dorothy "Dottie" Matson Swanson, age 89, passed on May 13th, 2020 at Bridges Memory Care Residence in Westford, where she had lived for the past three years. Dottie was born in Worcester and attended North High School and Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. She married her North High classmate, Thomas Stephen "Steve" Swift, in 1954 and gave birth to daughters Holly (1956) and Andrea (1959) before Steve succumbed to a premature death in 1964. She remarried in 1967 to Charles Otto Bud Swanson II, and gave birth to a son, Charles Otto III, in 1969. The family moved to Westford in 1972, and Dottie began a period of active community engagement. She was involved in the League of Women Voters, a leader of the Westford Garden Club, and notably active as Trustee of the J.V. Fletcher Library in Westford from 1977-1991 and as Board Chair in 1980-81. Dottie also contributed a significant period of her later life to volunteering with Emerson Hospital in Concord, where she logged a total of 5,640 hours between 1993 and 2016. Dotties family and friends will remember her sweet nature, her love of reading and gardening, her devotion to her grandchildren, and her extensive travel throughout the world with her husband, Bud. She is survived by her sister, Nancy Matson of Uxbridge, her daughters Holly Perry of Royalston and Andrea Honore of Princeton, New Jersey, and her son, Chuck Swanson of Westford, as well as six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Services private. The family suggests that donations in her memory be directed to the J.V. Fletcher Library, 50 Main Street, Westford MA, 01886. Arrangements under the care of Badger Funeral Home, A Life Celebration Home, Littleton. To share a memory or offer a condolence visit: www.badgerfuneral.com.