NORWAY – “Thank you very much. I had a wonderful time.” Cindy Reedy bid the world adieu on Feb. 8, 2024, from Androscoggin Hospice House in Auburn, Maine. As one close friend said to Cindy shortly after her cancer diagnosis over six years ago, “you haven’t wasted a minute of your life.” Whether raising a family; teaching at Hebron Academy; volunteering her time at local organizations; participating in numerous Oxford Hills Music and Performing Arts Association productions; hiking, camping, skiing and golfing; or traveling the world; Cindy made the most of her time with us.

Cindy started her remarkable life in Melrose, Mass. on Dec. 4, 1958. She was the third of four children born to Carol and Richard Reedy. Cindy was an outstanding student and an accomplished runner while attending Melrose High School. After graduating from MHS, she continued her education at MIT in Cambridge, Mass. In 1981, she graduated from MIT and shortly after moved to Seattle, Wash. to attend the University of Washington where she earned a Masters degree in bioengineering. While in Seattle, Cindy met her future husband, Brad Cummings, when they spotted each other at a Halloween party.

The germination for Cindy’s lifelong love of teaching began during her time as a camper at Camp Nokomis on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee in Meredith, New Hampshire. A teaching career was further ingrained while working at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. At the PSC, Cindy traveled with colleagues delivering educational programs to rural schools in Washington and Alaska. Stories from these encounters with young children in remote parts of Washington and Alaska provided laughs for many years.

Cindy and Brad were married in 1986 and moved back to Maine to be closer to family. In 1987, Cindy started her 34-year career at Hebron Academy in Hebron, Maine. Cindy’s continuous tenure at HA was the second longest of any female faculty member since HA’s founding in 1804. Cindy and Brad welcomed two sons and a daughter in the early years at HA. As in most private school settings, Cindy’s duties changed on an “and other duties as needed” basis. She started as a science teacher in 1987–biology, chemistry, physics, earth science–and finished as a Language Department Chair/French teacher in 2021. Her intellectual interests and abilities were vast! She even appeared on Jeopardy in May 2009. Her years timing HA hockey games paid off when she single-handedly cleared the “Hockey” topic in the Double Jeopardy Round. In addition to teaching, Cindy coached cross-country and track at HA and she helped to produce many of the annual all-school musicals.

When not at work, Cindy spent countless hours in her flower garden. She pored through seed catalogs each year in eager anticipation of the coming growing season. She loved to share her flowers with others and she was always on the hunt for varieties she didn’t have that might reside somewhere else–in a forest clearing, an abandoned house lot, or even in a neighbor’s garden.

Cindy was active in the local community. Sheperformed and participated in many productions of the Oxford Hills Music and Performing Arts Association, OHMPAA as it is locally known. She also provided guest sermons at the Norway Universalist-Unitarian Church when requested. Her sermons always included an “educational moment” or two when she would offer a scientific basis for historical events originally deemed “divine.” Cindy was active on the Board of Trustees for the Norway Memorial Library, serving recently as the Board President. Her time on the board was the perfect extension of her love of literature, especially murder mysteries and all things “Jane Austen.”

Travel and outdoor activities were always part of Cindy’s life. Cindy and her family camped in the Canadian Maritimes every summer when the kids were young. She took numerous trips to Europe with HA students during March break as an extension of what was taught in the classroom. She backpacked and mountaineered while living in Seattle followed by more balanced Maine/New Hampshire area hiking following her return to the east coast. She completed a one-day Presidential Traverse through the White Mountains of NH in June 2014.

Recent years afforded time to downhill ski with Brad and friends on a regular basis. Her interest in running continued well into her mid-life. She completed two marathons and she was an enthusiastic proponent of barefoot running.

Cindy is survived by her husband Brad Cummings; father Richard Reedy; mother-in-law Joan Cummings; son Charlie Cummings and daughter-in-law Kaylyn and granddaughter Ella; son Tom Cummings and daughter-in-law Claire; sister Marcia and brother-in-law Malcolm; brother Allen and sister-in-law Ellen; sister Allison and brother-in-law Shane; numerous nieces and nephews, aunts, uncles and cousins. Cindy was predeceased by her daughter Claire; mother Carol; father-in-law Stuart; sister-in-law Lisa; brother-in-law Gary.

A celebration of Cindy’s life will be held at a later date when we can be outdoors among the trees and flowers. Online condolences may be shared with Cindy’s family at http://www.chandlerfunerals.com.

Cindy felt strongly about making the world a better place.

In lieu of flowers or money donations to any of the worthwhile causes that exist, her family asks that you “donate” a gift of your time to a worthwhile cause of your choosing. We can think of no better way to honor Cindy’s significant contribution to the world she lived in

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