Barbara Thiessen MacMahon

Falmouth- Barbara Thiessen MacMahon, 83, of Falmouth passed away peacefully on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 2nd at her home. 

Barbara was born in Cleveland, OH and was raised in Scarsdale, NY. She attended Cornell University, where she studied psychology. Shortly after graduating in 1960, she took a job as a programming instructor with IBM in Boston, MA. 

Living in Cambridge, MA at the time, Barbara soon met her husband-to-be, Hugh MacMahon, a student at Harvard Law School, and the two were engaged and married in 1962. Eventually settling in Falmouth in 1966, after Hugh’s retirement from the Navy, Barbara and Hugh would go on to raise four children in their home of more than 50 years on Brook Road. 

With all her children attending school in Falmouth, Barbara became an active volunteer in the town’s school system, and would go on to teach mathematics at several area schools.

On Sundays, Barbara could often be found singing with her choir “family” at Trinity Church in Portland, where she also helped to start the church bell choir. She was an active member of the Choral Art Society of Portland, and briefly served as that organization’s president in the early 1980’s.

Barbara enjoyed canning vegetables from the family garden, and was well-known by those close to her for her “world famous” pickles. She loved meeting with her running and walking club at their favorite local coffee shops, helping Hugh finish crossword puzzles during their morning tea time ritual, cheering on the New England Patriots, and furthering her love of birds and nature at the family camp on Barker Pond in Sebago.

Barbara is survived by four children; David, Bruce, Kenneth, and Amy, and seven grandchildren. 

There will be a memorial service on Saturday, November 20, 2021 at 11:00AM at Trinity Episcopal Church, 580 Forest Avenue in Portland. Burial will be private at Pine Grove Cemetery in Falmouth.

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