Elizabeth Corrie Barrett
4/17/1942-11/21/2023
Elizabeth Corrie Barrett, 81, of Newport, Vermont, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, November 21, 2023.
Elizabeth, who was also known by her middle name “Corrie,” a family name, was born to Frances P. Campbell and Edmund C. Hughes in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, on April 17, 1942. She was predeceased by her husband, Leo Barrett Jr., in 2012. In addition to her parents, she was predeceased by her stepfather, Dr. Rhea Richardson; her stepmother, Eunice Hughes; her brother-in-law, Russell Landolt; and her beloved grandmother, Laura Smith Campbell.
Elizabeth was a trained vocalist who often performed in her youth, both solo and with her mother, Frances, who was a professional singer. Elizabeth also played numerous instruments from a young age, including violin, viola, piano, French horn, flute, and guitar, and she experimented with many other instruments over the years, including the bass guitar and dulcimer. She had a finely tuned ear and a powerfully beautiful soprano voice and she encouraged talent in others whenever possible.
Elizabeth grew up in Atlanta and Macon, Georgia, and attended schools in Georgia and Florida. She traveled with her grandmother, Laura Campbell, to Europe as a teenager. She also had adventures in Florida and Mexico as a young person, and went on a memorable car trip to Maine and Vermont with her mother and brother Jack, sparking a lifelong fascination with New England. As an adult, she loved to explore New England, Chincoteague in Virginia, and the U.S. southwest.
She was enrolled at Oxford, the women’s college of the University of Miami in Ohio, when she met Roger Landolt, a student at Miami.
After marrying in January 1962, she and Roger lived in Camden, South Carolina, before moving to Wilmington, Delaware, to raise their family. Elizabeth continued and developed further many of her lifelong passions: singing, playing music, writing poetry, water-color painting, sewing (later quilting), gardening (flowers and vegetables), learning about technology, and cooking. Much of her energy was spent serving in various roles at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wilmington, Delaware, where she wrote and directed short musical versions of Bible stories. Elizabeth also wrote a lovely Sanctus, which has been used in services in different churches.
After she and Roger divorced, Elizabeth relocated to Barton, Vermont, and married Leo Barrett Jr. Elizabeth often said that she loved Roger for his kindness and was grateful to have had her children with him.
Together she and Leo ran the General Store of Barton for several years, relishing the community and the relationships they built there.
Later, she and Leo moved to the Newport-Derby area of Vermont, where they both worked at Northeast Kingdom Mental Health, now called Northeast Kingdom Human Services – Leo as a drug and alcohol counselor and Elizabeth as an accountant (most recently her title was “Financial Administrative Assistant”). Her love of all things numbers (motto: “Spreadsheets are your friends”) found a home for more than two decades as she developed a massive spreadsheet and tracked and helped allocate funds until her retirement in 2019. Until recently she continued to work as needed with the agency as a consultant and mentor.
Elizabeth loved to learn and loved to teach others. She returned to college several times over her lifetime and earned degrees in accounting and English. She worked in Delaware and Vermont as an accountant, and she taught writing at CCV in Newport for a time.
Throughout her life, Elizabeth loved animals – particularly her horses (“Sister” and “Elvis Precious”) and her dogs. As an adult she doted on two canine friends, first Bobby and later Maggie. Maggie, especially, was a faithful, sweet partner who cheered her and returned her love abundantly.
Elizabeth also loved humor and had a playful side – she enjoyed watching “The Big Bang Theory,” sumo wrestling, and “Maine Cabin Masters” on TV. She was a crossword puzzle and Scrabble aficionado, and she was known to go fishing in Barton’s Crystal Lake with friends and was on a candlepin bowling team years ago. She particularly cherished the friends she made through quilting – her “Stitching Sisters” – and went on trips to attend big quilt shows and entered her art quilts in local shows.
In the end, Elizabeth was a lover of all things beautiful in this world and shared her own gifts to make it even more beautiful. She had a profound love of language and wrote many poems, which she shared with her friends and family.
She is survived by her brother Edmund Jackson Hughes of North Carolina (wife Sharon and their children Jennifer, Heather, Michael, and Stephen), her sister Lee Ann Finger of North Carolina (husband Anthony and their children Paul and Mary), her brother Rhea Ridgely Richardson of Tennessee (wife Kim and their sons Stefan and Aaron), her sister-in-law Jean Landolt of Maine, her daughter Elizabeth “Lisa” Anne Cope of Island Pond, VT (husband Joel and their son Alex), her son James William Landolt of Madison, VA (wife Bess and their sons Sam and Ben), numerous grandnieces and grandnephews, and many friends. She is also survived by Roger Landolt, who lives in Wilmington, Delaware. She appreciated the kindnesses of her stepson Jonathan Barrett of Delaware and his wife Grace and their daughters Audrey and Natalie.
In lieu of flowers, please feel free to make donations to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church (44 Second Street, P.O. Box 125, Newport, Vermont 05855), a wonderful and supportive faith community.
A memorial service will be held in the spring of 2024.
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