Born Sept. 14, 1927
Bern, Switzerland
Died Nov. 1, 2023
Lawrenceville, Georgia
Details of services
A memorial ceremony will be held in Decatur, GA., on Sunday, Nov. 19 and funeral arrangements in Burlington, Vermont are still pending.
Madi MacFarquhar, a Burlington resident for 38 years, died on Nov. 1. She was 96.
Madi died peacefully in her sleep in Lawrenceville, Georgia, where she moved in 2022 so that her oldest daughter could help to care for her.
She first arrived in Burlington in 1984, living for 31 years at 37 Ledgemere St., before residing at Harbor View and then Elderwood. Her favorite pastimes included gardening, traveling and browsing Fletcher Free Library for new books about history.
Well into her 80s, Madi was a stalwart member of The Edge’s early morning Adult Aquatics program, where another member, the late Judy Kelly, once remarked that those tempted to sleep in always remembered that Madi, at least a decade older than most everyone else, would not miss a class so they had best not, either.
Born Marie Madeline Gribi on September 14, 1927, in Bern, Switzerland, her Swiss family emigrated to the United States in 1938 as the rise of the Nazis began to convulse Europe. Madi graduated from Mt. Holyoke College, and worked briefly as a model in New York City, including, she recalled, posing in a bright red sweater for a young photographer named Richard Avedon.
In 1949, she married Murdo M. MacFarquhar, an engineer, moving with him on oil company assignments to South Africa, the Netherlands, Libya and Scotland. The couple had four children, Nina, Peter, Gail and Neil, all of whom survive her, as do 12 grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.
The longest posting, in Libya, lasted 13 years, and she was often critical of the way the United States intervened in the Middle East. “They behave the way the Romans used to and will go the same way,” she once wrote in a letter.
Widowed in 1977, Madi first moved to San Francisco, but hankering for a smaller city, was delighted to discover Burlington, with its echoes of the Swiss Alps along with rich cultural offerings.
No matter where her children were in the world, they always received updates from Ledgemere Street on the summer garden. “It’s skimpy,” she reported in 1989. “I might not be able to eat when the crops come in.”
She loved to travel to far-flung destinations, including several stints volunteering on archeological expeditions on Easter Island and elsewhere. Once, remarking on the logistics needed to catch an airport taxi on Cyprus, Madi wrote, “I don’t feel like being cheated by cab drivers. They will think they are seeing a naïve grandmother instead of a well-travelled battle axe.”
