BRADFORD, VERMONT—Lucia N. Button, a loving and generous wife, mother, grandmother and friend, and a nurse and resident of Bradford, VT and formerly Wareham, MA, died on Oct. 11th of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. She was 80.

She is survived by her husband, Joseph K. Button of Bradford; a brother, Allan W. Nye of Spokane, Washington; a daughter and son-in-law, Beth B. Conklin and Miles A. Conklin of Haverhill, New Hampshire; a son, Keith L. Button of Valley Cottage, New York; two grandsons, Wyatt W. Button of Brooklyn, New York, and Brent W. Button of Valley Cottage; and many nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her parents, Dr. Lucius S. Nye and Elizabeth H. Nye, and a brother, Kenneth T. Nye of Surry, New Hampshire.

Lucia was born July 31, 1944, in Lakehurst, New Jersey, to Betty and Lue, a nurse and physician. She grew up in Wareham, Massachusetts, and graduated from Wareham High School in 1962.

She met Joe, her husband-to-be, in the summer of 1965: On a particularly hot day, he was working on a U.S. Soil Conservation crew building a pond near her parent’s house in Thetford, and she brought him a glass of Coke. They were married December 26, 1966, at the First Congregational Church in Thetford Hill. They lived in Vergennes—she a school nurse; he a high school agriculture teacher--then moved in 1968 to their home on Summer Street in Bradford. She would later note that their house was visible from Interstate 91 at mile marker 98.6—the temperature marker of good health.

Lucia graduated from the University of Vermont as a registered nurse in 1966 and worked at New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston, where one of her earliest memories was of carrying an amputated arm to be disposed of in the furnace. In Vergennes she worked at the Weeks reform school, then in Bradford she was a nurse at local family doctor offices over the next two decades. In the 1980s and 1990s she was a nurse at Newbury Elementary School and then Waits River Valley School in East Corinth. Starting in the 1980s, she also volunteered on the Cottage Hospital ambulance squad in Woodsville, New Hampshire, and as a nurse for Hospice and at the Good Neighbor Health Clinic in White River Junction.

As a nurse, she had an impeccable bedside manner and ability to comfort sick patients. And she cared deeply about her patients—as a school nurse, she quietly provided coats, hats and mittens to children who lacked them. She was active in the Bradford church, singing in the choir, chairing the couples club and working on the missions committee.

Lucia was a proficient quilter, both with hand-stitching and with a sewing machine, sewing several quilt blankets and many pillows and clothing items. She enjoyed making arts and crafts with her Home Dem group, knitting and flower gardening.

She loved to sing, and instilled her love of music in her children. She enjoyed downhill, cross-country and water-skiing—she was a ski instructor at Northeast Slopes in East Corinth—as well as camping, canoeing, hiking, kayaking, skating and swimming, and she referred to herself as “addicted to biking.” In the spring and fall particularly, she liked to take “shunpike” drives over the back roads and find routes she had never traveled before, and to use “padiddles”—spotting cars with a headlight out—or covered bridge crossings as an excuse to kiss Joe. She loved going out for ice cream and was known to say “I never met a flavor of ice cream I didn't like."

At the peak of her powers, Lucia possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of all the latest goings-on in Bradford, thanks to her extensive network of friends throughout the community, connections through family, church and school, and her conversational talent--an ability to talk to anyone from any background.

She had a self-deprecating sense of humor and would often attribute jokes that fell flat to “Nye humor,” a supposed genetic tendency to induce groans instead of laughs. In her later years, she frequently would respond to troubling political news with the puzzling phrase: “If this made sense to me, I’d worry about me,” which she attributed to her father, though family members had never heard him say it.

Lucia was generous with praise. She heaped support and reassurance on her children to try things outside their comfort zones. She was a prolific letter writer; she would clip local newspaper photos, honor roll citations and accounts of sports exploits, and mail them to the honored individuals or their proud parents with notes of admiration and encouragement. She wrote letters complimenting local students for concert and play performances that she had witnessed.

She even spoke compliments for seemingly ordinary accomplishments, such as good driving skills on snowy roads, with genuine earnestness. And after a nice restaurant meal, she would compliment the wait staff and ask them to relay her appreciation to the kitchen, sometimes to the embarrassment of her family members.

“People get criticized all the time,” she would explain. “They need to hear the praise.”

A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. on October 26th at the Bradford Congregational Church. A reception with light refreshments will follow, also at the church. In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory can be made to Bradford Congregational Church, PO Box 387, Bradford, VT, 05033.