Louise Helen Coburn - Later Life

Later Life

Louise had the pleasure of seeing Sigma Kappa grow beyond her initial dreams of what it could be. Her family became very involved in the sorority. Her sister, Grace Coburn Smith, Alpha, became National President of Sigma Kappa. Two of her nieces, Louise Coburn Smith Velten and Helen Coburn Smith Fawcett, are Alpha chapter initiates. Joseph Coburn Smith, her nephew, married Ervena Goodale, Alpha.

Later in life, Coburn continued to live in Skowhegan at the family home where she was born. This is located at the intersection of Elm and Pleasant streets near the banks of the Kennebec River. In 1936, at eighty years of age, she purchased a vacant cottage on the south side of Elm Street, across from her home. She added a wing as a museum room and a repository for her writings and her research papers. Many early town records and maps filled this room as well as historic documents and a library of historical research books

The 1839 brick cottage was restored and renovated to its original state as nearly as was possible to determine, and filled with furnishings, antiques and items of everyday living. Her theme was to furnish the cottage as it would have appeared during the middle 19th century. All items in the collection were donated by families that lived in Skowhegan.

She welcomed visitors to her home as her strength allowed. She became completely bedridden but remained mentally alert, reading often and singing hymns when reading tired her. One of her letters to her Sigma Kappa sisters ended, "May the loving spirit of Sigma Kappa continue to guide you."

Coburn was 93 when she died February 7, 1949. She lived the longest life of any of the founders. Upon her death, she deeded the Skowhegan History House Museum to the Bloomfield Academy Trust, with the stipulation that the property be maintained and kept open as a museum for the public during the summer. The museum is still open for visitors and many relics of Louise Coburn's life can be seen, such as a doll house her father made for her and gifts from her grandfather.