Evelyn Vinton Beliveau, 95, of Jericho, Vt., died on September 30, 2026, in her home.
Lyn was born in 1931. The second of four children of Bill and Catherine Vinton, she grew up on Kezar Lake in Maine, which continued to be her favorite spot in the world, no matter how many places she traveled to.
Lyn graduated from Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine, and Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. (1952), earning a degree in mathematics. She decided she would either be a doctor or get married. She worked briefly at GE, then met Maurice Beliveau, a mechanical engineer, on a blind date. They wed in 1953 and were married for 56 years, until Maurice’s death in 2009.
The couple lived in New York State and welcomed four children before moving to Essex Junction, Vt., in 1965; a fifth child then completed the family. They named their kids in alphabetical order.
She lived a busy life as a wife and mother and was a member of Home Dem and the League of Women Voters. Several of her close lifelong friendships began in Essex Junction.
In middle age and with some offspring still at home, Lyn went back to school and earned a nursing degree at the University of Vermont. She worked in gynecology at the hospital in Burlington. Although she was a professional nurse for less than a decade, it was highly meaningful to her and became an important part of her identity.
Her childhood home in Maine had been a family-run summer camp for visitors from the early 1930s to the early 1950s. When she was young, Lyn worked there as a chambermaid, and her sister Fran worked as a cook. After the camp became a vacation place for family only, Fran and Lyn spent many summers there, where they more or less assumed their teenage roles and “ran camp.” These were some of Lyn’s happiest times.
Maurice retired in the early 1980s, and the couple became avid world travelers and Elderhostel attendees. Lyn was especially fond of overnight train travel and believed each Elderhostel to be “the best one yet.”
In 1983, Lyn and Maurice moved into a house in Jericho, Vt., that he had built himself. She embarked on a 10-year project of transcribing the diaries of her grandfather, Gen. Francis Henry French, whom she had never met. She enjoyed this project so much she had business cards printed with “Evelyn Beliveau, Curator” on them.
Lyn was a deacon of her church and a volunteer with the church thrift shops in both Essex Junction, Vt., and Lovell, Maine.
Lyn was not a braggart, except when the stakes were low. She often boasted to family about her naturally curly hair, which did not begin to go gray till she was in her seventies; her collection of (three!) cashmere sweaters; and her color-coding system for bedsheets — “green for queen, blue for two” — of which she was so ridiculously proud she insisted it be put in her obituary. (Here you go, Mom.)
Her character was outstanding. Lyn was an unflappable, reassuring, kind, loving presence, a bottomless well of patience and generosity. She seldom complained, and she was empathetic toward people who were struggling. Being inclusive was important to her. She could talk to anyone about anything and was always interested in what they had to say. She was exceptionally easy to please and a great travel companion. She was more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Her home was the family gathering place, and she was the magnetic center.
Things Lyn loved: roller coasters, puzzles, blue cheese, new places, storytelling, gadgets, Disney World, hauling out an aphorism for every occasion, reading (history and biography for herself; nursery rhymes and chapter books for the children in her life), playing games, baking with kids, hearing others play the piano.
Things Lyn was good at: knitting; she made countless sweaters, scarves, mittens and baby blankets and taught herself entrelac in her eighties. Playing along with “Jeopardy!”; she once passed a “Jeopardy!” test administered in Burlington but unfortunately was never called to be on the show. Reciting “The Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert Service. Cake decorating, including making elaborate themed cakes for grandchildren on request.
Lyn had a frightfully large collection of the Three Wise Monkeys. At some point a visitor referred to “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” as her motto. She seemed astonished at that idea but considered the possibility it was true.
In her later years as a widow, Lyn still traveled, but closer to home. She once tied a rope around a ball-shaped L.L. Bean ice cream maker and made ice cream by letting it bob around in the Atlantic Ocean. She became a “pub crawl” enthusiast, meeting up with family and friends for one drink at one establishment, where she would invariably order an old-fashioned cocktail. She played a daily game of cribbage with one son in a tournament that went on for years. She wanted to remain in her own home, and she did.
Lyn was predeceased by her husband, Maurice; brother, John; sister Frances; and her three cousins. She is survived by her five children and their spouses: Catherine (Robert), Joe (Julie), Paul (Constance), Teresa (Steve) and Victoria (Stephen). She is also survived by 15 grandchildren: Christine (Jeff); Averil, Aliza, Jordan and Marley; Annie, Evelyn, Arthur and Jessica; Katherine (Gus), Alexander (Ellis), Ethan and Jordan; and Andrew (Jessica) and Derrick (Emily). She is also survived by six great-grandchildren, John, Ben and Connor, and Grace, Eowyn and Nicholas; by her sister Elizabeth Powel of South Dartmouth, Mass.; and many extended family members on both the Vinton and Beliveau sides. Also mourning Lyn are an unusual number of people who considered her a surrogate mother and the members of her vast fan club.
The family thanks UVM Home Health & Hospice for its excellent care and counsel in the last week of Lyn’s life.
A memorial service will be held on Sunday, November 22, 2026, 2:30 p.m., at the First Congregational Church of Essex Junction, 39 Main St., Essex Junction, VT 05452.
Memorial gifts may be sent to the Fistula Foundation (fistulafoundation.org/how-to-help). Please visit awrfh.com to share your memories and condolences.