Beverly June Collins

of Avon passed away on Saturday, April 25, 2020, just shy of her 90th birthday from complications of Covid-19. She was perfect in every way.

Beverly had a brilliant and curious mind, and learning came easy to her in her youth. She followed local and national news stories closely, and studied politics with keen interest. She had been known to read encyclopedias for fun, and loved a challenging crossword or sudoku and later jigsaw puzzles. She had notebooks full of important facts and names and places that she would often reference or add to.

Bev loved the Arts. She was a talented artist and took delight in her own projects as well as teaching others. She had a masterful command of language and grammar. She volunteered as a substitute teacher, led various afterschool creative activity programs, and volunteered as a Girl Scout leader. She loved visiting art museums of all kinds and appreciated folk arts as much as fine art. She loved the theater; productions large and small. She loved music; played piano in her youth, and had a beautiful singing voice. As a teenager, she sang on the radio a few times. She could nearly always be heard singing or whistling a tune while she was busy with something else.

Her effortless beauty, grace, optimism, wonderful sense of humor, and charity were traits that everyone saw in her. She never felt envy, and believed jealousy was a destructive emotion. She was a child raised in the wake of the Depression and a youth during the second World War. She embodied the greatest generation and their sensible preparedness, thriftiness, optimism, and appreciation for the things they had. She and her husband Charles supported many charitable causes, and especially veterans' organizations and St Michael's Catholic Church in Avon, where she was involved in many of their activities over the years. She acted as bookkeeper and secretary for Charlie's electrical business for decades, and always impressed him with her organizational skills.

She loved nature, and gardening, and lily of the valley, and lilacs, and blueberry picking and the blue sky that reflected her beautiful eyes. She loved birds and their songs, and loved to identify the ones she found using the identification books she had for all kinds of flora and fauna. She appreciated the beauty and majesty and the fine details of nature.

She was also a caretaker; she tended house and cooked delicious dinner every night of her married life until she couldn't anymore. Over the years she nurtured sick pets and rescued wildlife, nursed her family when they were ill, and took care of her own mother during her final years of life.

She was a supportive and devoted wife. She met her husband Charles through mutual friends while she was working in Boston. He had just returned from the war in Korea. They married after a two year courtship, and, after living in Somerville for a few years, in 1960 they bought their house in Avon where they happily remained until her unfortunate admission to a nursing home last year. She gave birth to their only child Elaine in 1972 and dedicated the rest of her life to being the best mom in the world.

In the end, death should be "like taking off a tight shoe which you have worn well." - Ram Dass

After nearly a decade of fighting bravely against the progressively ravaging effects of dementia on her mind and body, she succumbed to a brief illness with COVID-19.

Beverly deserved all of the happiness and good things the world had to offer. She lived her life selflessly giving of herself expecting nothing in return. She deserved to be constantly reminded of how wonderful she was in every way, and how important she was, and in a fair universe she would have received in return all of the love she had released into it over the years. The isolation she endured as a person with advanced dementia over the many weeks leading up to her passing is one of the great tragedies of the pandemic. Our hearts go out to all of the residents caught in the middle of this crisis and their loving families who have been unable to visit and console them. Deprived of the ritual of funeral, we hope to honor her memory here. Beverly was predeceased by a brother, Lyndell, and is survived by her devoted husband Charles, her loving daughter Elaine and husband Michael of Providence, RI, her sister Elaine in New Hampshire, as well as dozens of beloved nieces and nephews all of whom she loved very much.



View the online memorial for Beverly June Collins