Mary Lou Raymo, 80, died Friday morning, May 13 at Clare Bridge Memory Care at Brookdale Fillmore Pond in Bennington.
She was born June 16, 1941, at Grace Cottage Hospital in Townshend, the daughter of Dorothy and William Holland. Mary Lou grew up on the family dairy farm on Holland Road in East Dover with her parents and her younger brother Ray Holland.
She attended a one-room school house in East Dover through eighth grade. She then attended Wilmington High School, graduating as class salutatorian in 1959. It was at WHS that she met her future husband James “Jim” Raymo; he was always Jamie to Mary Lou. They were married at the East Dover Baptist Church on July 9, 1960, with a reception at the Holland Farm.
After their marriage, Jim and Mary Lou lived in Wilmington for a year and then returned to Holland Road and built their house on the family farm. It was a house designed by Mary Lou and built by her husband, her father, and neighbors. Jim and Mary Lou made Cider Mill Pasture their home for 57 years.
Following high school, she worked in a variety of jobs, including as a milk tester for dairy farms around southern Vermont and with her mother as janitors at Dover Elementary School.
In the mid-1970s she began a career in Dover town government, starting as an auditor, secretary and assistant town clerk. In 1979 she ran for town treasurer, and seven years later after Virginia Carruthers’ retirement she became the town clerk and treasurer. She retired as town clerk in 2007 having served the town for 30 years. Not completely done with town duties, in 2007 she was elected as First Constable and collector of delinquent taxes, a part-time position she held until 2015.
Mary Lou was active in the Vermont Coalition of Municipalities during the initial fight against the…