Alice M. Sweet, 99, of Sweet Road, Waterbury Center, passed away in the comfort of her home and family on Tuesday, November 15, 2011. Born in Waterbury Center on July 7, 1912, she was the daughter of the late Francis L. and Lizzie (Hart) Minott. On August 5, 1938, she married Lynwood R. “Jack” Sweet in Johnson. Jack passed away on August 24, 1989.
Alice was a 1931 graduate of Waterbury High School and continued her education at the Johnson Normal School where she received her teaching certificate in 1933. As a young woman, Alice began a lifelong journey in music that began in school and played an important role throughout her life. While in school she enjoyed taking part in musicals and plays, played piano for Don Fields and Pony Boys in a Battle of the Bands competition and then for many years played the organ at the Waterbury Center Community Church and sang in the church choir.
Teaching school was not just a vocation for Alice. She loved helping children learn. Following a few years of teaching in one-room schools, Alice started in 1946 at the Seminary Building in Waterbury Center where she was a teaching principal. In 1960, she began teaching second grade at the Waterbury Elementary School from which she retired in 1975.
In her leisure time, she enjoyed flower gardening, particularly cultivating roses, sewing, crocheting pillowcase lace and singing. She was a member of the Waterbury Center Community Church for over 80 years.
Her family fondly remembers Alice for her kindness, grace and love, particularly for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She will be deeply missed.
Alice is survived by her children, Gayle Waite and her husband Bill of Elizabethton, TN, Carol Moulton and her husband Bill of Morrisville, and Brian “Tom” Sweet and his wife Grace of Waterbury Center; seven grandsons and 11 great-grandchildren; her sisters, Marion Moulton and Louise Welch, both of Waterbury Center, and Beverly Farnham of Williamstown; as well as nieces, nephews and extended family. Alice was predeceased by a grandson James Lynwood Moulton and a sister Myrtie Beane.
A celebration of Alice Sweet’s life will be held from the Waterbury Center Community Church on Saturday, November 19, 2011, at 11 a.m. with a reception to follow in the church dining room. Inurnment will take place in Waterbury Center Cemetery. For those who wish, memorial gifts would be appreciated to Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice, 600 Granger Road, Barre, VT 05641 (www.cvhhh.org) or to the Waterbury Center Community Church, P. O. Box 216, Waterbury Center, VT 05677. To send online condolences, please visit www.perkinsparker.com and Facebook. Assisting the family is the Perkins-Parker Funeral Home and Cremation Service in Waterbury.
