HERMENE B. KEHOE
SHERBURNE – Hermene Bernadette Bauer Kehoe, 93, of Sherburne NY, passed away at the Bridgton Hospital, Bridgeton, ME on Saturday August 16, 2014 after a brief illness.
Hermene was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on December 1, 1920 to the late Adolf and Frances (Supensky) Bauer. She attended public schools there as a young girl and had fond memories sledding and ice skating in Como Park. She earned her beautician’s license from the Lee School of Beauty Culture in St. Paul in 1937. That same year she moved east to her uncle’s dairy farm and worked as a beautician in Norwich NY. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, she was employed as the lead inspector in a munitions factory. But the war effort took the young hired hands away, and her uncle desperately needed her back on the farm. Hermene attended to all the duties a dairy farm of that era required: She helped milk over 50 cows, cut ice from the pond to keep the milk cool in the summer, cut firewood for the stoves, cut oats and hay for the draft horses and cows. She stayed on the farm even after the war when the men came back. She cooked for everyone and mended worn work clothes. She would start her doughnuts when “the boys were coming over the hill”. She was known on the farm as “Babe”.
In 1951 she met her husband William “Bill” Kehoe when he came to install a linoleum floor in the farm’s kitchen. They married later that year, a union that lasted over 53 years. She devoted herself to Bill’s many endeavors: his furniture business, the Kehoe Funeral Home, Handsome Brook Estates, his passion for antique cars and politics.
Hermene was active in the American Legion Auxiliary and St. Malachy’s Rosary Society. She was an avid bowler and had lots of fun with her teammates in the sixties. She loved to entertain; she was always cooking and baking for relatives, friends, funeral luncheons, the Rosary Society, and the Legion’s Bingo nights. She also loved to travel with her husband, especially to Ireland.
Hermene was an immaculate housekeeper and had a knack for making herself look fine. She always said exactly what she meant. In every way she was a strong, hardworking woman. She will be greatly missed.
She was predeceased by her husband Bill and her brothers Arnold and Gene.
Surviving are her two children: Kathy (Kehoe) Banks and her husband Henry of Denmark, Maine and Walter Kehoe and fiancee’ Jo’vonne Woolever of Sherburne; five grandchildren: Sarah and Henry Banks of Denmark, ME, Shannon and Seamus Kehoe and Dominick Woolever of Sherburne, NY.
A funeral mass for Hermene will be celebrated at 11am Saturday August 30 at St. Malachy’s Church in Sherburne.
Friends are invited to call at the Burgess & Tedesco Funeral Home, 10 S. Main St., Sherburne on Friday from 7-9 p.m. The rosary will be recited at 6:45 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Hermene’s memory to St. Malachy’s Church or to a charity of one’s choice.
Her family would like to extend gratitude to all those who cared for Hermene at the Chenango Memorial Hospital and Preston Manor in New York, and later when she came to Maine, to the doctors, nurses, and staff at the Bridgton and Lewiston Hospitals, and the professional care provided by Androscoggin Home Health Care and Hospice.
To send a condolence and sign the Book of Memories online go to www.burgessandtedescofuneralhomes.com.