Cynthia A. Houston

Cynthia (Cindy) Allard Houston, nee Brunel, 95, formerly of North Water Street in Boscawen, died Monday, December 25, 2023 at Bedford Falls Assisted Living Facility after a long period of declining health.  She was born in Concord, NH January 28, 1928, the youngest of six children of Harry C. and Alene Wilson Brunel.  Raised initially in Concord, she moved with her parents to Boscawen at the age of 12.  She graduated from Concord High School with the class of 1946.  After high school Cindy worked as an operator for New England Telephone Company and later in the advertising department at the Concord Monitor.  In December of 1949 Cindy married Air Force Lieut. Conrad M. Allard of Lyndon Center, Vermont and embarked on a life as a military spouse.  In less than one year she made homes in Texas, Arizona, and Virginia.  In November of 1950 she returned to Boscawen when Lieut. Allard was deployed to Korea.  Her husband was killed in July 1951 while serving overseas and Cindy remained in Boscawen to raise her son, who was born a few weeks after Lieut. Allard deployed.

                In November of 1953 Cindy married Theodore J. (Ted) Houston Jr. and moved to Lincoln, NH where Ted was principal of the Lincoln school. Two years later they welcomed a second son and relocated to Goffstown.  After five years in Goffstown the family moved to Bedford, MA, spending the next 23 years there.  While living in Massachusetts the family circle was completed by the birth of a daughter in 1969.  The family returned to Boscawen in the autumn of 1983, occupying an antique farmhouse they dearly loved for 37 years.  Cindy enjoyed a life-long passion for all types of gardening.  She always had a large vegetable garden, and her love of flower gardening spread from home to community beautification as well.  She loved entertaining and bringing legions of family and friends together around a meal. She could feed unexpected guests a banquet from a nearly empty cupboard.  Everywhere she lived she was active in the local garden club, historical society, and the PTA.  She was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star for nearly 70 years, and for several years she was a Trustee of the Trust Funds for the Town of Boscawen.

                Always ready to hit the road Cindy travelled extensively, from childhood trips accompanying her father on his sales trips for Frankfort Distilleries to a series of recreational vehicles that carried her from Newfoundland and Labrador in the northeast to the Florida Keys in the southeast, twice up the Alaska Highway to Denali in the northwest, and down the Baja Peninsula to La Paz, Mexico in the southwest. She visited all fifty states and all ten Canadian Provinces.  With Ted she made multiple trips to Europe and visited the Caribbean islands.  Wherever she travelled, she was in search of beautiful flowers and recorded what she found in photographs and notebooks.  As much as she took to the open road, she was always glad to get home to her own gardens and the wildlife outside her own windows.

                Predeceased by her parents, both husbands, and her five siblings, she is survived by her sister-in-law Mary Ann Hermance of South Weymouth, MA, her three children, COL (ret) James C. Allard and his wife Gail of Pittsfield, NH; Douglas M. Houston and his wife Suzanne of Farmington, NH; and daughter Kate (Deborah) Goodin and her husband Doug of Andover, NH.  She is further survived by two grandsons, Jason D. Allard and his wife Amanda of Kittery, ME, and Maxwell P. Goodin of Andover, NH.

                Memorial Service will be held at 11:00a.m. Thursday, January 18, 2024, at Phaneuf Funeral Homes & Crematorium chapel at 172 King Street, Boscawen, NH.  Interment to follow immediately at New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery, 110 Daniel Webster Highway, Boscawen.  A collation for family and friends will begin a 1:00 p.m. at the Kimball-Jenkins Estate carriage house, 266 North Main Street, Concord.

                In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions are encouraged to the Boscawen Historical Society (www.boscawenhistoricalsociety.com ), or the Scottish Rite Children’s Dyslexia Centers (www.childrensdyslexiacenters.org/donate ), or consider becoming a blood donor (www.redcrossblood.org ). To view an online memorial, leave a message of condolence, or for more information please visit https://phaneuf.net/.