Born in Montreal, Quebec, the younger daughter of James Harold Reid and Dorothy Outhet Reid, she was educated in Montreal schools and entered McGill University at age 16. She graduated in 1948 and the following year from the McGill Graduate School of Library Science.
Active in student affairs at McGill, she was the first woman elected a vice president of the Arts & Science Undergraduate Society, and served on the board of the Women’s Union. She was one of the first recipients of the Martlet Award for Distinguished Service to Women of the University.
She married fellow McGill classmate Kenneth McPherson in Westmount, Quebec in 1951. At that time she was a member of the faculty at Dartmouth College. She moved to Brooklyn, New York, where she was a Children’s librarian in the Brooklyn Public Library system. She and Ken moved to Bloomfield, New Jersey, in 1954, lived briefly in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, then moved to Mendham, New Jersey, in 1968.
Beryl retired in 1990 as the head librarian of Kent Place School in Summit, New Jersey, a K-12 girls’ independent school. She and Ken moved to Phippsburg in 1991 and into their house on the Kennebec River built by their son-in-law, Derek Smith, in 1992.
Her parents were early skiers and started her skiing at Mont Tremblant, Quebec before there were chairlifts. Until recent years, she spent every summer at the family camp at Lac Tremblant Nord which was accessible only by water. She always wanted to be outdoors and was never happier than skiing, sailing, working in the garden or especially taking out the canoe for a paddle after dinner when it was still. She, as her mother and great-grandmother before her, was considered one of the Grand Old Tremblant Ladies.
Beryl had a lifelong commitment to community service beginning when her grandmother, who was a board member of the Seaman’s Institute in the Old Port of Montreal, would perch her on the piano while she played.
She was a member of the Portland Junior League and a past president of the Junior League of Montclair/ Newark. She was also the past president of the Bath Memorial Hospital Auxiliary, serving until the merger of the Bath and Brunswick Auxiliaries and served on the board of Mid Coast Hospital at the time the new hospital was built. She volunteered at the Bath Coffee Shop and at the information desk in the new hospital. Beryl also served as the chair of the Phippsburg Cemetery Trustees and volunteered at the Totman Library. She was a member of the Bath Garden Club, the New England Wildflower Society, the Frelinghuysen Arboretum, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and a charter member of the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Beryl was a member of the Patten Society of the Patten Free Library in Bath and a corporator and member of the Heritage Society of Mid Coast Hospital.
She was predeceased by her sister, Carol Reid Reilly in 1999 and her husband Ken in 2008. She is survived by her daughter, Caelie Smith and her husband, Derek, of Woolwich, sister-in-law Audrey McPherson and her family of Mission, British Columbia, many cousins, nieces and nephews in Canada and dear friends she met throughout her life and whose friendship she greatly enjoyed.
The family gratefully acknowledges, with many thanks, her kind and caring friends, neighbors, especially the Buchanan family, Ruth and Jim Harvie, Betsy Brandt and her go-the-extramile doctor Carl Demars and his assistant Terina Reno, and the wonderful staff at Cadigan Lodge and CHANS hospice.
A gathering in her honor will be held at The Highlands of Topsham in the Ballroom of the Holden Frost House on Saturday, October 19th at 11 a.m. Burial will be at Morningside Cemetery in Phippsburg.
Contributions in her memory can be made to the Kenneth & Beryl McPherson Endowment Fund of Mid Coast Hospital, 123 Medical Center Drive, Brunswick, ME 04011.
The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air, the fragrance of the grass speaks to me.
The summit of the mountain, the thunder of the sky,
The rhythm of the sea, speaks to me.
The faintness of the stars, the freshness of the morning, the dewdrop on the flower, speaks to me.
The strength of the fire, the taste of salmon, the trail of the sun, and the life that never goes away, they speak to me
And my heart soars.
— Chief Dan George
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