The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
It has been in many ways the shortest, and longest, 10 years since our wonderful Mom/Grandma/Great Grandma died. The suddenness left us reeling and unable to truly even attempt to honor her legacy properly in her obituary at the time. We hope to at least get a bit closer to that now.
Mabel (her nickname was Tink, short for Tinkerbell) was born in New Brunswick, NJ, the 3rd of 4 children, to the late Dr. Alan Arthur and Dr. Mabel Josephine (Gregg) Boyden, who were both Professors of Zoology at Rutgers University. Her early years were spent with her parents, brothers Douglas and Alan, and sister Cornelia, on the family farm on Old Georgetown Road in Franklin Township. In her high school years, Mabel was out enjoying a hayride for a friend’s birthday on the rural roads of Franklin Township, when she met her future husband, Ralph, who was out riding with his friend on a motorcycle. She graduated from Princeton High School in 1949, and Mabel and Ralph were married on June 17, 1950, before he joined the Marines and was sent for training at the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, NC. She briefly attended Douglass College at Rutgers University. After Ralph, a lifelong proud Marine who served stateside during the Korean War, was honorably discharged, Mabel and Ralph settled in Hightstown, NJ, where they raised five children, and in 1958 he started his dairy farming business on Decker’s Dairy Farm. Besides working the dairy farm and raising five kids, volunteering was a huge passion of hers and she found the time to be an active member of the NJ Farm Bureau Women, a Sunday school teacher at the First Presbyterian Church of Cranbury, a Girl Scout leader for her two eldest daughters, and an active member of the Princeton High School 49ers alumni committee. Many years later, Mabel and Ralph built the family home (with lots of family help) in Franklin Township on land next door to where Mabel grew up. In 1977, the home was complete, and the family moved in and named it Homestead, then later, Little (Lil’) Redwood, in honor of Mabel’s family farm, Redwood. Mabel had a bit more time on her hands after moving back to Franklin Township, as there were only two kids at home by that point, and a beef farm took up slightly less time than the dairy farm in Hightstown. She was very excited to begin her job off the farm working for Sears in the Children’s Department at the Quakerbridge Mall, where she worked for about 20 years, retiring in 2000. She helped many families with the needs of their children, always with a bright smile and friendly demeanor, being acknowledged at times by customers who sent letters to Sears, Corp. stating her pleasant helpfulness. After retiring, she had more time to volunteer, and she was a president and treasurer of the American Legion Post 401 Ladies Auxiliary, an associate member of the Marine Corps League Corporal Philip A. Reynolds Detachment NE, and president of the Ten Mile Run Cemetery Association from 1999-2015.
No one could ask for a better neighbor than Mabel and Ralph, always willing to help anyone if they needed it, and making the rounds with holiday gifts every year. She loved to cook and even had a recipe for her spiced party pecans published in the 2017 Gooseberry Patch’s Secrets from Grandma’s Kitchen cookbook. She hosted all the family holidays from soup to nuts, an annual themed (mostly Valentine’s Day) dinner with her youngest grandchildren (H H House, then later, H H T House), and one year, even a formal tea. She was the consummate hostess who loved to bake and create themed birthday cakes for our family. She was keen on tradition and made sure to have the ingredients on hand for the famous Christmas Plum Pudding, made at Thanksgiving, for which the entire family made a wish while stirring. She then steamed and froze it to be eaten at Christmas with hard sauce.
After the grandchildren were born, she then began creating “fill in the blank” Christmas and Easter trivia/games to play. Her children and grandchildren were blessed with a mother/grandmother who always made them feel special, was always excited to see them, helped them out without asking, and attended their events without a complaint (sports and even the long recitals and band concerts in stormy weather; she was a very proud Band (Grand)Parent for her three youngest grandchildren).
Mabel was the most selfless, generous, kind person you could meet, who never truly met a stranger, and her family misses her dearly.
Sending her roses in Heaven.
In loving memory, her children Barbara and Walter Gaskill, Jennie and Mark Lindbloom, Tom and Diane Davenport, Jim Davenport, Pam and Rich Attanasio; her grandchildren Joseph and Beth Peacos III, Matthew and Amnah Lindbloom, Sarah and John Marion, Heather, Holly, and Timothy Attanasio; and her five great-grandchildren, Joseph Peacos IV, Carter Rose and Kaia Lindbloom, and Wyatt and Sylvia Marion.
