Boston Post Cane presented to 100-year-old Dexter woman

Staff Reports
    DEXTER — Virginia Buswell Seavey of Dexter celebrated her 100th birthday earlier this year among family and friends.

    On Sept. 26, she was honored as Dexter’s oldest female resident and presented with the town’s Boston Post Cane by Town Manager Linda-Jean Briggs.
Observer photo/Mike Lange
    BOSTON POST CANE — Virginia Buswell Seavey, who turned 100 on Feb. 4, was presented with the Boston Post Cane on Sept. 26 in recognition of being Dexter’s oldest female resident. She’s pictured with her sons Joseph (left) and John.   
    Many of Mrs. Seavey’s relatives joined her for the Meals for ME luncheon at the Dexter town hall, hosted by the Eastern Area Agency on Aging (EAAA). “This is quite a surprise. It’s nice to see so many people here,” she said after the presentation. “I guess being 100 is a blessing.”
    She was born in Wayland, Mass. on Feb. 3, 1913, the third of six children born to Charles and Bessie Hart Buswell. Her mother died when she was eight years old while giving birth to a sibling.
    Eventually the family moved to Dover-Foxcroft and Virginia wound up living in Milo where she graduated from Milo High School in 1931. She worked as a housekeeper and Nanny in Bangor for five years, and then moved back to Massachusetts where she worked in a factory making rubber lift rafts during World War II.
    She married Carlton Seavey in 1946 and they moved to the Old Newport Road in Dexter where, at age 33, she started a family. Carlton and Virginia had two sons — John and Joseph.
    Carlton suffered a stroke in 1969, so Virginia learned to drive and obtained a driver’s license for the first time. She and her husband enjoyed going for rides; so when her son, John, moved to Oklahoma in 1976, she drove out to visit them. She and Carlton then drove to California, back to Oklahoma and then to Florida. They made that trip two more times.
    Carlton Seavey died in 1985 and Virginia now lives in the Silver Lake housing complex in Dexter with caregiver Nancy Hughes. Mrs. Seavey has five grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild.