TOPSHAM – Connie Baskett passed away in her sleep on Dec. 19, 2019. She was 92.
Connie, third of five children, was born in 1927 to Don and Gladys Burnham. She spent her childhood in the Pontiac, Michigan area where she graduated from high school and was active in the marching band. In 1952, after graduating from Michigan Normal College and teaching for a few years, Connie joined her two older sisters in Southern California. It was there that she met and married Bill Baskett. The couple lived in Riverside and, later, Claremont, raising their three children.
In the early 1970s, after a break, Connie returned to teaching elementary and special needs children, which she continued to do for the next 30 years. In the late 1970s, after Bill’s death and as the children got older, Connie began splitting her time between Claremont and Idyllwild, where she later relocated full time to teach, perform with the singing group Local Color, hike, write poetry, and pick up a second degree (in anthropology) from the University of California at Riverside. 
Connie remained in Idyllwild for about 20 years before relocating to Maine, first to South Portland and later to Topsham, to be closer to her grandchildren. Though she would have denied it, Connie was a woman of remarkable gifts who remained active throughout her later years, in her mid-80s completing a 5K with her daughter, spending time with her grandchildren, quilting, singing with the local UCC church choir, collecting sea glass, participating in book groups, and writing.
Connie is survived by her younger brother; her three children, their partners and her three grandchildren, all of whom express their special thanks to the caregivers who attended Connie in her last days and who made those days, for Connie and us all, immeasurably better.

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