Former Houlton teacher celebrates 100

Karen Donato, Special to The County
14 years ago

Marjorie Coffin celebrated her 100th birthday recently surrounded by family and friends at her Commonwealth Avenue home where she has resided for the last 60 years.
Born in Springvale, the daughter of a minister, Coffin spent most of her childhood in Dover Foxcroft. Her senior year in high school was spent in Vinalhaven where her family had moved. Coffin then entered Pembroke College, a division of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island to pursue a teaching degree. She was very faithful in returning to her alma mater for reunions and was one of two that attended her 70th in 2003.
With her degree, Coffin began teaching English and Latin in Washington County’s Woodland school district for $1,000 a year. It was there she met her future husband, J. Rodney Coffin, an Ashland native who was substituting. Their careers took them to Higgins Classical Institute in Charleston where they welcomed the birth of their first son, Jack in 1942. Not long after their son’s birth, Rodney Coffin was called to the armed services and spent two tours of duty in Europe during World War II.  After his return he worked as an insurance agent and the family which had added a second son, Jim moved to Houlton.
With encouragement from his wife, Rod Coffin left the insurance business to pursue his teaching degree. He taught physics and chemistry at Houlton High School and then became the principal in the mid-1960s. Due to ill health he resigned the administrative position and took a teaching assignment in 1967, where he remained until his untimely death in 1974.
Mrs. Coffin had re-entered the teaching field when her sons enrolled in school and she was a longtime Latin teacher at Houlton High School, retiring in 1973.
Although Coffin leads a more quiet life these days, she was very active with the Houlton Women’s Club, the Houlton Garden Club and the Congregational Church. She has enjoyed singing all of her life and has sung in many church choirs, the Brown University Glee Club and the Houlton Community Chorus. Even into her nineties, Coffin attended the exercise classes at Houlton Regional Hospital and kept her independence by driving herself around town.
Joining her in this significant milestone were two of her three grandchildren, Nate and Jennifer Coffin of El Paso, children of the late Jack Coffin and her son, Jim from Hudson, Mass.