Lorna (Field) Quimby (1928 – 2025)
The life she recently described as rich and full reached its end on April 14, 2025. There's a term for a strong emotional connection to a place: topophilia, and that's what Lorna had for her hometown, Peacham.
Lorna was born July 30, 1928, the fourth of Ben and Helen Field's five daughters and raised on the family farm in Peacham's "South Part," a farm she remembered and brought to life vividly both in her columns for the Danville North Star and in her memoir Growing Up Rural, published in 2020. She attended Peacham schools, but due to World War II calling up so many men, both students and teachers, she spent her last two years of high school living in Lyndonville with her older sisters and young nephew and attending Lyndon Institute, where she made many life-long friends.
Salutatorian of the class of 1946, Lorna turned down a Green and Gold Scholarship to UVM because her father couldn't afford the room and board. Instead, she went to Burlington Business School, now Champlain College. She took her skills in typing, Gregg shorthand, and bookkeeping to Keene, New Hampshire, where she worked in the secretarial pool at Peerless Insurance and helped care for her niece Jane for several years.
Returning to Peacham, she worked as a secretary for Luce Manufacturing Company in Groton. During this time, her sister Patty and Patty's then fiancé Buddy McLam arranged for Lorna to meet Dick Quimby, who was home on leave from the Navy. Lorna and Dick had both grown up in Peacham, but in different parts of town at a time when you walked to school, and Dick was two years ahead of her at Peacham Academy, and they both were shy, but this time, the connection was made.
Dick and Lorna married on Halloween 1953 and immediately settled in the house in East Peacham where they lived until Dick's death in 2018. Their daughter Katherine was born in 1957, followed by Laura in 1961, and Lorna devoted herself to being a mother and homemaker, sewing clothes for her daughters, canning and freezing all the vegetables Dick grew in his ever-expanding garden, picking wild blueberries and raspberries. But there was also time for fun, from walks in fields and Moore's sugarwoods, making dolly clothes and having tea parties and picnics.
A woman of many talents, once Laura started school, Lorna began to work a wide variety of part-time jobs, including church secretary, secretary, seamstress, and upholsterer. She was bookkeeper for Peacham Academy and eventually handled the accounts when it closed. Indeed, Lorna served her hometown in many capacities, starting as an elementary school board director and moving on to assistant town clerk, town clerk, president of the Peacham Historical Association and author or editor of several of its books, treasurer of the Peacham Congregational Church and member of its choir for many decades. In between all that, Lorna also attended what was then Lyndon State College, earning an AB in Business and a BA in English.

The life-long love Lorna had for her hometown ran deep, and it was with a pang that she left in 2020, when she could no longer live alone. After a few months with her daughter Kathy, Lorna moved into The Manor in Morrisville, where she received excellent care, found new community and reconnected with the music she loved, thanks to Sergio Torres. The family is forever grateful to the staff at the Manor, doctors Tusa van Vogelpoehl and Mike Hayes and to Morristown EMS for their fine care, which made Lorna's last years as comfortable as possible.
Lorna was predeceased by her parents, Ben and Helen (Miles) Field, her older sisters June Darling, Mildred Twombly and Sylvia Evans, niece Joyce Darling and nephew David Evans, her husband Dick and baby Margaret (at birth). She is survived by her youngest sister, Patty McLam; daughters Katherine Quimby Johnson (Greg) and Laura Goodwin (Dennis); grandchildren Steven Goodwin (Samantha), Lydia Johnson (partner Jay Rivers) and Casey Goodwin; great-grandchildren Thaddeus and Sophia Goodwin and numerous beloved nephews and nieces.
Services for Lorna will be held at the Peacham Congregational Church in Peacham, Vermont, on Saturday, June 7, 2025, at 11 AM. Burial will follow in the Peacham Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, please make a donation in Lorna's name to The Peacham Historical Association, PO Box 101, Peacham, VT  05862; The Peacham Congregational Church capital fund, PO Box 205, Peacham, VT 05862 or https://www.peachamchurch.org/donations or the Peacham Library, PO Box 253, Peacham, VT 05862.