LAMOINE – Edna Louisa Middleton Bunting, most recently of Lamoine, died Sept. 24, 2006, at a Bangor health care facility. She was born Sept. 8, 1909, at Niagara Falls, Ontario, to Eliza Ann (Goater) Middleton and William Henry Middleton. Raised at Niagara Falls, Canada, she was a fine student and an outstanding basketball player in her youth. After completing her education, Edna moved to the United States to begin a career of work with the YMCA. There she met her future husband, Howard William Bunting. They married in 1942 and honeymooned by hiking the Appalachian Trail from Pennsylvania to North Carolina. Edna supported Howard in his determination to be a conscientious objector during World War II, a choice that exposed him to malaria in his role as a subject of medical experiments in the national interest; both of them to a certain level of hostility from loved ones and others. Edna’s great achievement during this period was to keep communication open and remain on speaking terms with their entire family. Howard and Edna pursued a career in YMCA camps and service to youth, generally with Howard as director and Edna as secretary, bookkeeper and general factotum. For many years, they ran Camp Hazen, Chester, Conn., where they were known to generations of boys as “Mr. and Mrs. B.” They lived in Hamden, Conn., during this period and Edna nursed their daughter through the after effects of polio, an epidemic which spread through the country in the early 1950s. They were also active in the First Presbyterian Church, New Haven, Conn., where both served on the session. Although herself conservative in politics, she nonetheless made sandwiches and helped the church provide services to war protesters and those demonstrating during the extended trial of Bobby Seale in New Haven, Conn., in the early 1970s. Edna and Howard retired in 1977, and enjoyed an active life of traveling and bird watching. They moved to Ellsworth, in 1986, shortly after the birth of Andrew Stocking, their only grandchild. After Howard’s death in 1989, Edna moved to Lamoine in close proximity to her family. She volunteered at Birdsacre Sanctuary and continued her work with children by reading to students at the Lamoine Consolidated School. In later years, she was plagued with dementia and deprived of many of the pleasures that had sustained her during her active life. Her family appreciates the care which she had received at Westgate Manor, Bangor, over the last five and one-half years. She is survived by her only child, her daughter, Anne Elizabeth (Bunting) Stocking and son-in-law, Fred Stocking, both of Lamoine; her beloved grandson, Andy, now a student at Beloit College, Wisconsin; her sister, Doris Sage of Niagara Falls, Ontario; and several nieces and nephews in both the United States and Canada. She was predeceased by her brother, William Middleton; and, earlier this month, by her sister, Muriel Long of Orillia, Ontario. Donations in her memory may be made to the library of the Lamoine Consolidated School, 53 Lamoine Beach Road, Lamoine, ME 04605.
EDNA LOUISA MIDDLETON BUNTING
