Gertrude Edwina (Lodge) Andrews

LANCASTER - With profound sadness we announce the passing of Gertrude “Edwina” Andrews, 95, on Saturday, July 13, 2019 at Heywood Wakefield Commons in Gardner. Edwina was born in Boston, the daughter of Edmund A. and Gertrude E. (Reed) Lodge.

Edwina in her early years lived in Johnson City, Tennessee where her father served as a physician on the military government facility during WWII. She graduated high school in 1942 and attended the Ward Belmont School in Nashville, Tennessee earning a degree in Liberal Arts. Following her family to Boston, she attended Boston’s Childrens Hospital School of Nursing and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in 1948. She met Donald P. Andrews from Lynn, Massachusetts and they married in 1948. In early years they lived in Gloucester, then Randolph, and eventually moved to Lancaster in 1963 where she remained until moving to Gardner in 2017. Edwina worked as a nurse part-time for years while her children grew and eventually finished her nursing career at Digital, working for 12 years as an Industrial Nurse.

Edwina was an impassioned gardener and tended a beautiful perennial garden for decades. She was an avid reader, and especially loved British murder mysteries. She loved the arts, music, dance, theater, went to museums regularly and attended the Boston Ballet for 25 years. She was a talented seamstress and made clothes for her young children and later intricate clothes for the porcelain dolls. She loved traveling whether she was rafting down the Colorado River, walking the streets of London, visiting museums in Scotland or sailing in Maine. She was a member of the Evangelical Congregational Church of Lancaster, loved babies and volunteered in the hospital holding and rocking children.

Most of all she loved her family and instilled in her children strong values that have served them well. She will be dearly missed and forever in our hearts.

She leaves her seven children, Elaine Andrews-Ahearn and her husband, David of Hampton Falls, NH, Lois Brodmerkle, and her husband, Robert of Klamath Falls, OR, Laura Amorino and her husband, Joseph of Baldwinville, MA, Linda Sacco and her husband, Robert of Exeter, N.H., Lisa Cummings and her husband, David of Princeton, MA, Donald Scott Andrews and his wife, Sheri of Klamath Falls, OR and Derrick Graham Andrews and his wife, Kirsten of Westminster, MA. She also leaves 19 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren and 4 great-great-grandchildren.

Relatives and friends are invited to visit with Edwina’s family on Friday, July 19th from 11a.m. to 12 p.m. followed by a memorial service at 12 p.m. in the Miles Funeral Home, 1158 Main Street, Holden. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to GVNA Healthcare, Inc., ℅ Marketing & Business Development, 34 Pearly Lane, Gardner, MA 01440, ATTN: Hospice Care. www.milesfuneralhome.com

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