Phoebe F. (Johnson) Rutherford
Aug 27th, 2018
Phoebe Foreman (Johnson) Rutherford 95 of West Dennis died peacefully Monday August 27, 2018.
Born in Baltimore, MD, Mrs. Rutherford was the daughter of the late Dr. S. Lloyd and M. Florence (Franzen) Johnson. She was raised in neighboring Catonsville, MD.
After graduating from Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College) in 1944, Phoebe joined the Navy as a W.A.V.E. She hoped to be posted overseas, but instead served in Cleveland, OH and San Diego, CA. She was honorably discharged in 1950.
She was briefly married to Raymond Rutherford, but returned to Catonsville to raise her daughter, tend to the family flower and vegetable gardens, and to preserve the produce.
After the death of her father, Phoebe went to work as an executive secretary, becoming a working mother at a time when that was not a common situation. After 20 years with Roper Eastern, she retired to Cape Cod where she and her family had spent many happy vacations with her uncle and aunts, from whom she inherited her home. For the next decade, she took the opportunity to travel the world. She was always happy to return home to her cats, Cindy and then Tiggy.
Phoebe is survived by her daughter, Flo Rutherford and her husband, Jody Boese; her granddaughter, Kira Rutherford-Boese and her husband, Derrick Xu; her great-grandson Vincent Xu; her sister, Harriott Johnson Quin of Denver, CO; her sister-in-law, Dorothy Johnson; and several nieces, nephews, and friends.
Funeral services will be private.
As an expression of sympathy, memorial donations may be made to Honor Flight New England, P.O. Box 16287, Hooksett, NH 03106, www.honorflightnewengland.org, who provided her with one of the best days of her life on a trip to Washington D.C. in 2016 or to the Fund for Nature, Mass. Audubon, 208 South Great Rd., Lincoln, MA 01773, www.masaudubon.org, in recognition of her lifelong love of birds.