Miriam Watson went down fighting against two very tough opponents, suffering ups and downs along the way.
She and her husband, Bill Watson, fought homelessness for four years as directors of Concord’s cold-weather shelter, which provided adults with overnight warmth at the South Congregational and First churches.
And she battled breast cancer for 11 years, giving the disease a run for its money before succumbing Sunday while in hospice care, with Bill by her side.
She was 44.
A public memorial will be held in a few weeks, Bill Watson said. Miriam Watson is also survived by her two children, 13-year-old Anabelle and Greg, 11. Both were home-schooled by their mother, whose list of contributions reached many areas of the city.
So powerful, in fact, was Watson’s impact that the marquee at Arnie’s Place, often used to reflect emotions felt in the city, read, “We love you Watson family.”
Watson was best known for her volunteer work with Bill on homelessness. The couple took over the cold-weather shelter program in 2010 and directed the effort until 2014. They raised funds and donations, coordinated schedules and monitored behavior at the two locations.
“The best word to describe her was lovely,” said Amanda Grady Sexton, director of public policy for the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence and an at-large Concord city councilor.
“Everything about her was absolutely wonderful. Always smiling, always upbeat, even in the worst of circumstances, and she had an eternal optimism about her.”
While considered gentle and caring, Watson was not shy about expressing her feelings on the city’s homeless problem. The shelters began as a temporary solution in the early 2000s. They closed last year, after about a dozen years, when the burden became too great.
“She had a strong voice that the city was not stepping up to what they should be doing,” said Bill Watson, who works at the state Department of Transportation. “She still considered it to be a problem that the city was ignoring. She thought people still didn’t understand what the real face of homelessness looked like.”
Bill Watson and his children agreed to an interview Monday, speaking from their Concord home. Lines were drawn on a kitchen wall showing the changing heights of Anabelle, who wore a flowered dress, and Greg, who wore a superhero T-shirt.
Photos were spread on the dining room table, pictures of the family posing at Fenway Park before a Red Sox game and with Donald Duck at Walt Disney World. The pictures were chosen by the children and brought to the hospice over the weekend.
Greg and Anabelle were home-schooled by their mother, who made field trips a regular part of their curriculum. She’d take them to the Museum of Science and the New England Aquarium, both in Boston, and the Stone Zoo in Stoneham, Mass., registering them for monthlong classes that met once a week.
For their physical education courses, they’d ski at McIntyre Ski Area in Manchester, Pats Peak in Henniker and Gunstock Mountain Resort in Gilford.
“We were going to go to Gunstock again this year,” Greg said.
Watson majored in political science at the University of New Hampshire, and she once worked as a legislative assistant for the state Senate Democratic office.
Her home-school classroom studies included lessons about immigration, with Watson incorporating the issue into a school project that saw her children interview the presidential candidates and write about their experiences.
“When we’d visit with the candidates, she told us to specifically research refugees in the United States,” Anabelle said. “She told us they should be allowed, that there should not be a limit.”
Added Grady Sexton, “The way she home-schooled was really outstanding to watch. I don’t think there was anyone more talented in terms of a teacher taking that on. She was absolutely qualified, and I think Anabelle and Gregory are light years ahead in terms of their education as a result.”
Watson was certified as a youth hockey coach, and the family attended the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010 to see national player and University of New Hampshire graduate Kacey Bellamy, whom they had befriended.
She taught her children how to sew and encouraged them to learn to play the violin, which they did on Saturday, playing a French-Canadian song to bid their mother farewell.
Watson also taught baby yoga, helping mothers connect spiritually with their babies. She loved reading Harry Potter books. And she drove for the Red Cross, chauffeuring cancer patients to their chemotherapy appointments.
“When I was little, I would associate the Red Cross symbol with my mom,” Anabelle said. “I was still old enough to understand she was helping them.”
Watson’s own experience with cancer began in March of 2005, when she was pregnant with Greg. Bill Watson said doctors discovered the cancer thanks to Miriam’s pregnancy. “She would have died years ago if not for her pregnancy with Greg,” he said.
Instead, Watson actually responded well to treatment. She lost her hair but went into remission in 2007. “She was declared cancer free,” Bill Watson said. “The treatment allowed her to have a good quality of life.”
In 2010, however, a different form of breast cancer surfaced, yet Watson continued her work directing the homeless shelters in the years that followed.
“She never let the cancer slow her down,” Bill Watson said.
“She greeted everyone with a smile, the warmth of her smile,” said Carlos Jauhola-Straight, the assistant pastor at South Congregational Church for the past 10 years. “She had a sense of love and appreciation for every human being she encountered. She could see what everyone offered and tried to honor that.”
By 2014, after a few years of relative comfort, Watson’s condition worsened, gradually at first, then faster this summer. The Watsons took their usual August trip to a rented cottage on Lake Winnipesaukee, where Miriam began sleeping on the couch, too weak to move upstairs to the bedroom.
That continued at their home in Concord. Bill Watson said their goal was to keep Miriam in her own house, allowing her to die there. During this time, she kept her sense of humor, said Susan Lawless, one of her closest friends.
“I was the jester making it less tense,” Lawless said. “She loved The Simpsons, which showed she had a little bit of a twisted sense of humor. We would joke about her haunting me once” she died.
It happened about noon Sunday. Dozens of friends moved in and out of Watson’s room through the weekend, saying their goodbyes to a woman whose gentle nature belied her inner strength.
Those close to Watson mentioned her unassuming manner, her listening skills and her genuine concern for other people. Lawless said Watson texted her 12 days before her death, saying, “Know that whenever you’re reading Harry Potter, I’ll be with you.”
“She was a giant person,” Lawless said, “packed into a tiny body.”