Our Beloved Maggie

Margaret B. Hurll

5/19/40 - 10/6/24

According to her husband and soulmate of sixty-five years, Maggie was a saint. His opinion is shared by countless family members and friends who are celebrating Maggie's innumerable contributions to their lives even as they mourn her death.

Maggie, Mom, was an exceptional saint. She gave everyone — family, friends, strangers — her full and undivided attention. Whether it was a loaf of her own homemade bread or a long, soulful conversation, Mom reveled in the joy of connecting with and sustaining other people. Her brand of kindness was uniquely her own — it was nuanced with faith, humor, strength, quirkiness, and wisdom. She had a gift for drawing on metaphors to convey difficult facts of life, such as "The world hard boils us and then expects us to hatch."

Born Margaret Chatham Brady in 1940 in Boston, Massachusetts, Maggie attended Choate School where her mother, Elizabeth Hulsman Brady, was a teacher. Maggie's father, Leo Brady, was a law student at the time. The family moved to Madison, New Hampshire, when Maggie was eight years old. She was voted Most Popular of her high school class and forged lifelong friendships. Her cousins, Judy, Toby, Bill, Sue, and Jo, were like her siblings, and she adored them all.

After graduating from Kennett High School (Conway, New Hampshire), Maggie attended Catherine Gibbs Secretarial School in Boston, where she mastered the fine art and skills of an executive secretary.

Since she was 13 years old, Maggie had eyes only for Charles "Ricky" Hurll, and dreamed of raising a family with him. They were married in 1959 and raised three daughters in the comfort and security of a relationship that through life's good times, and even through its inevitable storms, only grew stronger over the years. Following Rick's career, the family resided in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Portland, Maine, and Palm Beach, Florida. Maggie created her own extraordinary successes wherever she worked — as a stay-at-home Mom, as a cook for two Catholic priests, and as an executive secretary for a variety of organizations, including the University of Maine, Maine Medical Center, the Unum Group, and Financial Planners of Palm Beach. She endeared herself to employers and colleagues throughout her career.

In the 1990s, Maggie became a champion for families of the mentally ill. For years, Maggie found time every night to call her sister Lorrie, who was institutionalized in New Hampshire with schizophrenia, and visited her at least once each week and did whatever she could to help make her sister more comfortable. Shortly after their mother died, Maggie received a shocking surprise — a notice from New Hampshire demanding reimbursement for all the expenses for the years of medical care Lorrie had received from the state. Maggie discovered the state could make this demand under a law based on the antiquated belief that the family caused an individual's mental illness and therefore should be required to pay for the necessary care of that illness. For several years, Maggie worked tirelessly to bring this injustice to the attention of the public, and thanks in large part to her efforts, the law was eventually repealed not only in New Hampshire, but also in the few other states that still enforced it.

In the last few years of her life, Maggie/Mom suffered with dementia and agonized over her inability to run the household. During this time, our Dad was Mom's anchor, assuring her again and again that she was loved beyond measure and that, after a lifetime of service, it was time for other people to help her. When Mom became confused, agitated, and frightened, she went straight to Dad, who would drop everything in order to hold her hand, look deep into her searching eyes, assure her that no matter what happened, he would remain by her side — they would never be separated.

In the middle of the night of October 3rd, Mom wandered into the woods where she fell and sustained a traumatic injury. She received Comfort Care at the Gosnell Memorial Hospice House in Scarborough, Maine, where she died of her injury October 6th.

Maggie's death leaves an excruciating vacuum in our lives — an emptiness that is filled with more love than this body can comfortably contain. We draw on the comfort that Maggie knew we'd desperately need someday. As she often told us, "The end may be horrible, but it's not the end."

Maggie/Mom is survived by her husband Charles "Rick" Hurll; daughters Karen Hurll Montanaro, Susie Hurll Bastian, and Joan Hurll Isenberg; son-in-law, Rev. Michael Bastian, grandchildren David and Nicole Bastian, Katie Bastian, John and Jordyn Bastian, Sam and Dorcas Whippo, David Whippo, and Rebekah and Mark Noel; sister-in-law Peggy Hurll Dyment; nieces and nephews Janet, Dana, David, Linda, Jenifer, Jerry, Sara, and Bob; cousins Toby, Bill, Susan, Joanna (Big Jo), Joanna (Little Jo), Fawn, and Howie. Her first great grandchild is a boy, due in March. Maggie is predeceased by her parents Elizabeth and Leo Brady; sister Lorne "Lorrie" Brady; and cousin Judy Hulsman Buffington.

In lieu of flowers, please send donations in memory of Margaret B. Hurll to Gosnell Memorial Hospice House, 11 Hunnewell Road, Scarborough, Maine 04074. www.hospiceofsouthernmaine.org/donate

A celebration of Maggie's life will take place sometime in July 2025 at The Little White Church, Eaton Center, New Hampshire.

******

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Thrall to these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.

—Shakespeare, 146th Sonnet (One of Mom's favorite poems.son)

Give me a doctor partridge-plump,

Short in the leg and broad in the rump,

An endomorph with gentle hands

Who'll never make absurd demands

That I abandon all my vices

Nor pull a long face in a crisis,

But with a twinkle in his eye

Will tell me that I have to die.

—WH Auden (Another of Mom's favorites.)