Thursday, March 29, 2007 Older Editions

Peggy Hutchins

Peggy (Walbridge) Hutchins died Thursday, March 8, 2007, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She had had a stroke while at home in Andover two days before.

For the previous 31 years, Peggy and her husband, Clement (Hutch) Hutchins, had divided their time between her homes in Moultonboro, N.H. and Andover.

Peggy was born in St. Louis, on April 19, 1920, the daughter of Merrill Packard Walbridge and Bess Nederlander Walbridge. She was educated at Emma Willard School in Troy, N.Y., and graduated from Wellesley College in 1941.

From 1968 to 1972, Peggy was employed in the Dean of Students office at Harvard College. She was secretary to the Dean of Students, Archie Epps, during the tumultuous period when protesting students regularly took over University Hall and evicted all of the college's officials and staff.

Peggy's lifelong interests were recreational sports and reading. She began skiing when the sport was in its infancy in the U.S., and she pursued the sport with passion for the next 50 years. While living in Laconia, N.H. in the 1950s she served on the then-all volunteer ski patrol at the Belknap Mountain Recreation Area (Now Gunstock Ski Area).

She and Hutch had a tennis court in their back yard in Andover and they had many "tennis friends" there and in New Hampshire. They also went on dozens of multi-day bicycle excursions, on several continents, during their near-30 years of retirement together.

In addition, Peggy was a lifelong devotee of good writing and was never without a few good books to highly recommend to a friend, or to give to family members on appropriate occasions.

As well as numerous reading groups, Peggy had been active in several outdoor-related clubs over the years: The Beacon Hill Tennis Club, the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Bicycle Adventure Club, and the Loon Preservation Committee of New Hampshire.

Also, in addition to Hutch, Peggy is survived by her brother, Ken Walbridge of Delray Beach, Fla.; three children, Peter VanEtten, of Longmont, Colo.; David VanEtten, of Lafayette, Calif.; and Carol Van Etten of Plainfield, Vt. She also has six grandchildren.