Alaina B. Huxtable

Alaina Huxtable passed from this life on September 21, 2026 after six-months of tender and loving hospice care while residing at The Cordwainer memory-care residence in Norwell, MA where she had lived for the past three years. Prior to that, Alaina and her late-husband, Peter, spent ten happy years of retirement at The Village at Duxbury in Duxbury, MA where the couple became friends with everyone they met. Alaina, born in Lewiston, ME and raised in Stoneham, MA where she graduated from high school with the Class of 1958, lived a life of purpose. An artist at heart, she expressed herself through the commitment and attention she paid to others - embracing a lifelong personal obligation to causes larger than herself.

Devoted wife to Peter (1940-2023), the pair raised two sons, Jonathan and David,in their modest home in Woburn, MA where they resided for forty-three years. Her life’s work was raising her family. Despite difficult financial periods, Alaina always found ways to make the family’s simple house a warm and loving home - hallmarked by her deep maternal instinct to sacrifice sleep and personal recreation to prioritize her family. For 25 of the years she spent raising her family, she worked 4-nights a week from 10pm-7am as an answering service operator - a schedule she gladly accepted because it enabled her to be home to see her children off to school and husband off to work each morning, and then sleep until dinner. Through a variety of secondary jobs, Alaina made a life of serving others and their needs while providing the means for her children to thrive.

Alaina, an activist in every sense of the word, gave voice and agency to those without it. Her engagement in causes larger than herself started in earnest when, as a twenty-five year old in March of 1965, she got on a plane for the very first time and flew to Alabama to participate as a marcher in the storied Selma-to-Montgomery march for voting rights. For years afterward when asked about what motivated her participation, she simply replied, “It was the right thing to do. I had to do something.” Letting her life speak is what Alaina did, whether it was advocating the disenfranchised or protesting against war as a means for peace, Alaina was always found on the side of action. Files and files of correspondence with elected officials offer testament to her advocacy as an actively engaged and energized citizen.

Closer to home, when lawyer Jan Schlictmann started his grassroots effort to research the causes of the leukemia cluster in her city of Woburn, MA, Alaina volunteered to be part of the team calling fellow residents to gather information to determine the cause which was ultimately found to be contaminated water wells, the story of which was subsequently turned into a book and movie.

Additionally, Alaina and Peter served as foster parents, opening their home to 14 different foster children in need of short-term foster care over a seven-year period. Alaina was also an active member of CUB (Concerned United Birthparents) where she found a supportive network of birthparents and also served as a support to others who had given up children for adoption. In early-1960s Boston, she was forced to live in a home for unwed mothers before giving birth and surrendering her first-born child. The pain and grief of this experience shaped much of the rest of her life, and was only reconciled upon the reunion of mother and child three decades later.

Alaina was a member of Friends Meeting at Cambridge (Quaker) where she served on numerous committees over a thirty-year period. She was also a follower of Thich Nhat Hanh, renowned peace activist, poet, and Vietnamese Buddhist Zen master, whom she went to see speak on several occasions. She was insatiably curious about religions and religious practices, befriending Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and members of many different faiths all while finding her own spiritual home in a cross section of Quakerism and Native American practices. She and Peter attended many joyful and spiritually enriching pow wows across Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Yet her greatest joy in life may have been time with her precious grandchildren. “Nanny” made magic real for her grandbabies, whether turning paper sleeves of straws into worms that actually moved, making a jumping frog out of paper, or reading children’s stories with full emotion and effect. She simply made their lives fun. Time on the beach at Nantasket, walking in the woods in Maryland, snowshoeing in Vermont, or chasing backyard fire flies in Delaware, Nanny was always up for an adventure. “Nanny” was known to turn Post-It Notes into anything imaginable - origami (peace cranes and jumping frogs were her specialty), personal reminders, poems, transcribed passages from favorite books, and heartfelt messages to loved ones.

In addition to her Post-It Note creations, Alaina found ways to apply her artistry through a variety of media including watercolors, needlepoint, crocheting, knitting, baking, making Christmas tree ornaments and other handcrafted gifts. She loved camping with her family and enjoying the artistry of the natural world just beyond the sides of her tent.

Alaina leaves behind her beloved children and their spouses, John Ramsdell (Nicki, Seattle, WA), Jonathan (Kelly, Wilmington, DE) and David (Kelley, Hull, MA), grandchildren Nathaniel (23), Annabelle (19), Nelleh (16), Kennedy (14), her older sister Nancy Ann Chandler (Kennebunk, ME), and nephew Brooks Chandler (Anchorage, AK), nieces Kimberly Chandler (Newport, RI), andKristin Chandler (Randolph, VT). Alaina is predeceased by her husband, Peter, daughter-in-law Christine Monk Huxtable, and grandson Benjamin Thomas Huxtable.

In lieu of flowers donations may be made in her honor to Friends Meeting at Cambridge https://fmcquaker.org/connect/contribute/

Massachusetts Center for Native American Awareness https://www.mcnaa.org/donate

Concerned United Birthparents https://concernedunitedbirthparents.org/donate

Or a charitable foundation of your choosing. A Celebration of Life will be held at Friends Meeting at Cambridge 5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge, MA 02138 on November 28 at 11:00 AM.