Marsha R. Coder, 64.

• Position: OBITUARIES

NORTHBOROUGH - Marsha Robbins Coder passed away on May 6 at UMASS Memorial Hospital at age 64.

Born April 9, 1949 to Monroe and Betty Ann Robbins in Washington DC, Marsha was the eldest of five children. Recently she has recounted memorable stories from her childhood in Silver Spring, MD with her siblings, parents and extended family. She married high school sweetheart Bill in 1972 and they adopted daughter Chrystie in 1980. Opening her heart and family to those closest to Chrystie brought another adult daughter, Kym, in 2001, several "sons of the heart", and two grandchildren into the family.

Having formed a passion for teaching, Marsha received a BS in Elementary Education from the University of Maryland in 1972. She became an outstanding elementary school teacher in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and New Hampshire, before teaching at the middle school level in the Douglas, MA school system, where she retired in 2008 after 15 years. In her 29 year career she left lasting impressions on many hundreds of students, often remembered for active teaching of math skills, as well as for her well-stocked candy drawer.

Marsha was always a remarkably caring woman, putting others first and expecting nothing in return. Throughout her adult life she struggled with health issues, but maintained a ferocious will to overcome that; she never complained and always had a smile on her face in public. Marsha was often funny without necessarily trying to be and treated strangers as potential friends. Her purse was kept filled with an array of tools and anything one might need to survive an apocalypse, as well as her bubblegum and Diet Coke. She relished her "gorgeous growing...