HOULTON and SACO Natalie Howard Potter, a public school teacher for most of her life, died Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2008, in Saco. Her death at 99 was the result of natural causes, and occurred at the home of Kathy Stiling at Camp Ellis, who had lovingly cared for Natalie for more than three years. She was born April 14, 1908, in Hodgdon, the eldest and last surviving of four children of Elwood and Jemima Howard. Her siblings predeceasing her were Lewis Howard, Ralph Howard and Arlene Bradbury. Natalie was brought up on a working potato farm and completed her secondary education at Ricker Classical Institute, where she excelled in tennis and basketball. At the age of 17, with three weeks of formal preparation, she began teaching eight grades in a one-room country school in East Hodgdon, to which she daily rode her horse. By the time she ended her career, she had taught in every decade from the 1920s to the 1990s, in various primary and secondary schools in Woodville, Bowdoinham, Oyster Bay, N.Y., Houlton, Littleton, Hodgdon, Bucksport, Bangor and South Portland. Her final position, while in her mid 80s, was as a part-time instructor for the University of Maine, teaching Western Civilization and Maine History. She attended normal schools in Castine and Farmington, and graduated from Aroostook State Normal School in 1933, after which she was granted a lifetime teaching certificate from the state of Maine. A lifelong learner with an insatiable thirst for knowledge, in 1956 she earned her bachelor’s degree in education and in 1960 her master’s degree in history, both from the University of Maine. In 1933, she married Lewis Potter of Houlton who died in 1987, and with whom she had two children, both of whom survive her, Carol Lou Cleale and her husband, Ralph Cleale, and Roderick Potter and his wife, Mary. She is also survived by nine grandchildren, Ralph, Pamela, Lewis, and Elizabeth Cleale, Catherine Cleale Grace, Gabriel and Sarah Potter, Molly Potter Dall and Joshua Hughes. She leaves nine great-grandchildren, Robert, Riley, and Charles Dall, Jessica and Isabel Acosta, Jennifer Nash, Zachary and Olivia Cleale and Caroline Grace. During retirement, Natalie traveled extensively with her husband in the U.S., Mexico, Central America, and Europe, and at the age of 89 realized a lifelong dream with a visit to China that included a riverboat cruise through the three Gorges of the Yangtze River. Funeral services will be held 1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 16, at Houlton Military Street Baptist Church. A service of remembrance will be held 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 23, at Unitarian Universalist Church, Saco. In lieu of flowers, friends may make gifts in Natalie’s memory to Military Street Baptist Church or Houlton Community Arts Center, care of Dunn Funeral Home, 11 Park St., Houlton, ME 04730.
NATALIE HOWARD POTTER
