FRANCES MAYER


Frances Elizabeth Mayer

Frances Elizabeth Mayer, aged 94 died September 18, 2009 in Parker, CO, on what would have been her 72nd wedding anniversary.

Frances was born in The Flats section of Wilmington, the daughter of Horace and Martha (Ferguson) Livergood. Her mother died within three days of her birth and it was believed that Frances would follow her mother soon. She lived to prove the prognosticators wrong. Frances was adopted by the maternal aunt she was named after, Frances (Ferguson) Forbes, and spent her first years in a Philadelphia boarding house with her adopted mother. She moved to State Line, PA, a place name given to the area adjoining the Delaware and Pennsylvania state lines on what is now US Route 202; soon after her mother married Lewis Talley of Talleyville. She lived on the same site for more than forty years. She moved to the Devon sub division of Brandywine Hundred, within five miles of her childhood home, and lived there for more than another thirty years. Her mother ran a tourist home at State Line close to a roadside stand her mother built and operated, later to become the site of Hatfield's Seafood Market. In addition, her mother ran a truck farm that supplied chickens and eggs, delivered door to door, to families in Wilmington. She often shared fond memories of horse drawn sleigh rides in her grandfather Kurtis Talley's rig on what is now the Concord Pike and her formative years in the surrounding areas of Glen Mills and Chadds Ford. She met her husband of more than 50 years, Albert Louis Mayer, when she was in the third grade at Chadds Ford Elementary School. They married in 1937, lived in a home they built on her mother's property, and moved to Devon in 1963 where she operated a day care for many years. She was a member of Elam United Methodist Church for over 75 years, a long serving treasurer of the church's Sunshine Bible Class and the last surviving member of the Sunshiners.

She was preceded in death by her beloved husband, Albert Louis Mayer, and is survived by her children, Frances D'Angelo and her husband Leonard, of Glendale, AZ; Lorraine Armstrong and her husband Francis, of Burnt Cabins, PA; Albert Louis Mayer, Jr., and his wife Anne, of Urbana, OH; Mary Arlene Robyn and her husband Tom of Parker, CO; and Roger Mayer and his wife Sally of Shaker Heights, OO. In addition, she is survived by 9 grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren, and 1 great-great-grandchild.

Funeral service Saturday Sept. 26, 2009 at 11am in the Elam United Methodist Church, 1073 Smithbridge Rd. Glen Mills, PA. Calling from 10-11am at the church. Burial in Elam Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions to Elam United Methodist Church.

Arrangements by

RIGBY CHADDS FORD



[published 09/23/2009]