Cellen Fowle, 88, of Southport, died peacefully at home on Jan. 24. Despite failing health in recent months, she remained a vital force in the lives of her children and grandchildren. Her home was a place to relax, reconnect and experience again and again the attention and generosity of a loving mother, grandmother, aunt and friend.
She outlived her husband, Evert Fowle, all her siblings, and many of her friends. Despite such losses, her continued interest in and engagement with her family, her friends, current events and her garden revealed an extraordinary ability to accept what is and to be grateful. The recent political events were a challenge to her equanimity, but she trusted the country would return to its senses.
She often said she was the victim of a happy childhood and she entertained first her children and then her grandchildren with these stories. She went to Wellesley College and spent her junior year in 1947 Paris. She traveled all over Europe that year and her letters home portray a curious, albeit naïve, rather fearless young American woman who was welcomed, embraced, everywhere she went.
She liked being married. She liked being a mother. She liked teaching French to young children. Each April 19, she would walk down from her home in Lexington to Mass. Ave. to watch the early morning “town” parade. There she’d be regaled by a steady chorus of “Bonjour Madame” as wave after wave of former students filed by.
She and Ev moved aboard their boat in 1979 and lived on it for 20 years, returning to Southport most summers. They made friends easily, kept in touch and invited them to come to Maine and tie up at their dock. They sailed all along the East coast and Maine, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. They crossed the Atlantic three times, sailed the British Isles, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Later, they spent winters in the Caribbean and South America, bringing their boat back to Southport in the spring.
She is survived by her cat, Juno; Cellen and David Wolk of Palisades, N.Y. and their children Sarah, Ben and Julia; Jef Fowle of New Orleans, La. and his children John Ross, Johanna and Allison; Evert and Lori Fowle of Vassalboro, and their children Evert, Hayden and Morgan; and Janet Fowle of Damariscotta, and her sons Max and Cole.
In lieu of flowers, please make a contribution to the ACLU or Planned Parenthood.
We hope to meet with her friends and our large extended family this summer to celebrate her long and happy life.