Marit W. Wilson
SCARBOROUGH – Marit W. Wilson died on Dec. 28, 2023. She was born Marit Williams Andersen in Medford, Ma. on Nov. 20, 1926 to Charles and Susan Smith Andersen. She was raised in Wellesley, Mass. and Portland, Maine, graduating from Portland’s Deering High School in 1944.
In June 1948, she graduated from the University of Maine (Orono) and married classmate William Wilson in August of that year. Their daughter Susan was born in 1950; sons William and Scott were born in 1951 and 1954, respectively. They lived principally in Ann Arbor, Mich. and Hampden and Orono, Maine. For more than half a century, their family enjoyed spending summer vacations at their camp on Boydens Lake in Perry, Maine.
Marit’s early adult life was consumed by her selfless work in caring for her children and family. And the home she made was superb: full of kindness and good humor but also her firm dedication to expose her kids to an endless stream of new events, people, and opportunity. Her perhaps pedestrian cooking while child-rearing laid the foundation for her later intense interest in preparing the wonderful meals for which she became known. The antique – ’picking’ which she and Bill started in their early years turned into a lifetime pursuit – and a home packed with interesting old stuff. (What other home had a pie safe, a firkin, and a soapstone stove?) She enjoyed big cookouts on rocky beaches, golf, newspapers, coffee, going cross-country in the Airstream, St. Augustine in winter, and people. To really know her, you had to hear her hit a heart-stopping harmony, on the first line of the spiritual ‘Old Black Joe’ – “Gone are the days, when my heart was young and gay….” She didn’t sing much in her later years, but she was born to sing harmony.
Marit was predeceased by her husband and her sister, Lorene Struzziero. She is survived by her daughter Susan Ingalls and husband Terry of Portland, son William of Portland, and his daughters Marit, Fiona and Emma; son Scott and his wife Sarah of Dover, Mass. with offspring Casey Brock-Wilson, Steffi Brock-Wilson, Scotty Brock-Wilson, Mackie Wilson and Gray Wilson
A family memorial service will be held this summer.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Share your condolences, kind words and remembrances below. You must be logged into the website to comment. Subscribers, please login. Not a subscriber? Register to comment for free or subscribe to support our work.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.