Phyllis Hansen Edgcomb

Phyllis Edgcomb, of Mashpee and a member of the Falmouth Arts Community, passed away on August 31, 2025 at 103 years old.

She was born in 1922 in Denver, CO, and grew up in Millburn, NJ. Her father, Arnold Hansen, was an electrical engineer/inventor for Bell Telephone Co., who loved violin, painting, and gardening. Her mother, Dorothy Potter was a homemaker from Kansas, and mathematics aficionado, who lived by a strict sense of midwestern ethics. Phyllis and her three sisters, Joan, Mary Louise, and Ginny took weekly painting lessons at an early age from one of their neighbors who was an accomplished water colorist, E. Stanley Turnbull.

After leaving Skidmore College where she was a fine arts major, Phyllis married her high school sweetheart and husband of 65 years, Harry L. Edgcomb at the onset of WWII. Harry was a flight instructor in the Navy and his duties took them around the US. She was mother to three children, Sandra, David, and Ginny, and raised these children in Short Hills, N.J.

She was an accomplished cook and took lessons from some of the best French and Chinese cooking teachers in the N.J. and N.Y.C area, regularly testing her diverse ethnic cuisines and delicious pastries on her lucky family. She was an active member of the Summit Arts Center where she continued watercolor lessons with Betty Stroppel and traveled with her to destinations in Europe to paint. The British Cotswolds and regions of Scotland were some of her favorite destinations. But she also painted landscapes and old barns that inspired her closer to home.

At the family home she maintained beautiful gardens of roses, begonias, and tulips, and was an avid gardener and birder with her husband Harry. Harry and Phyllis enjoyed family vacations in New England, and many sightseeing train, riverboat, and car trips with sisters, family, and friends. Some of their happiest times were spent by the river at Harry's fly fishing club in Easton, PA.

Outside of the home Phyllis was active in many different activities, including serving leadership roles in the N.J. and national Girl Scout Council, as the chief horticulture consultant on roses for the Summit Arboretum, initiating the Millburn Township recycling program, and in later years, selling real estate

After a devastating house fire where they lived in Chester, N.J., the couple was fortunate to move onto the property of daughter Sandra and husband Page Stiger in Pittstown, N.J.

After Harry passed in 2007, she spent more time in Massachusetts, and moved in full-time in 2016 with daughter Ginny and her husband Richard. At that time, she joined the Falmouth Arts Center where she took painting classes with Dan Hannigan and his group until she was 100 years old. She made many wonderful friends there and was a much loved member of the painting group. In 2018 Phyllis was invited to hang a show of her own work that she was very proud of. Throughout her life, painting remained a constant source of joy. It sustained, nourished, and stimulated her, and when she painted, she usually had a wonderful smile on her face. Until she was 100, she derived pleasure not only from her own creations inspired by local landscapes and family gardens on Cape Cod, but from the companionship of her classmates at Falmouth Arts Center and from the many dear friends she made in the Mashpee and Falmouth area.

She is survived by her two daughters, Sandra Stiger and her husband Page Stiger of Union Township, N.J., and Ginny Edgcomb and her husband Richard Sperduto of Mashpee, MA, her grandchildren Michele, Laurie, Sara, and her great grandchildren Summer, Charlie, Ben, Regan, Eli and Reagan. She was pre-deceased by her son, David and granddaughter Christine.

Private arrangements will be made by the family. If one wishes to make a donation, a gift in her name to the Falmouth Arts Center would be appreciated.