In Memoriam

Frances Kirby Forster
1934-2025

COOPERSTOWN—Frances Kirby Forster, loving wife and mother, passed away early Saturday morning, October 4, 2025, at the age of 90 at Cooperstown Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing.

Fran was born on December 9, 1934 in Mickleton, New Jersey, moving with her family to Seaview, Virginia, then back to Mickleton in 1941, and finally to Westville, New York in 1945, where the family lived and worked on a dairy farm.

In 1952, she graduated from Milford High School and then attended Albany Business College. She worked for William Sherman, director of the Otsego County Probation Office, as a secretary before marrying Henry Forster in 1955. They lived in Oneonta for three years, where Henry attended Hartwick College and Fran worked as a secretary at the Homer Folks Hospital. In 1958, they moved to Sodus, where Henry taught the sciences. Fran attended Oswego State College for two years, then two years at Oneonta State College, earning a degree in childhood education.

In 1962, the couple moved to Fly Creek Valley on a 97-acre farm, raising Christmas trees, making fishing lures and selling fishing bait. Henry taught science at Edmeston Central School and Fran taught kindergarten for 19 years at the Richfield Springs Central School.

In 1963 and 1966, two sons were born, namely Eric Henry and Mark Alexander. Mark passed away in 1989 and Eric in 2014.

Frances and Henry retired in 1985 and spent winters in Florida, where they fished and swam in the Suwannee River and the Gulf of Mexico.

Henry passed away in 2013. In 2021, Fran moved to the Clara Welch Thanksgiving Home.

Fran was a great lover of music and art. In her younger years, she enjoyed painting, playing the piano and singing. Later, from 1999 to 2014, she helped her son, Eric, on the family’s organic farm, raising vegetables for local farmers’ markets.

Her brother, Allan, and sister, Alva, are both deceased. Fran is survived by her nephew, Jeffery Kirby (Debra, deceased), their daughters Kaelin Kirby and Alexandra Scammell (Bradley), and their daughter Gianna Scammell; also the family of her nephew, Timothy Kirby (deceased) (Denise) and his sons Wesley, Daniel, and Thomas; also sister-in-law Dorothy Forster and daughter Michele (Jason) and their children, Hannah and Owen, and sister-in-law Annaliese Bettiol (Art, deceased) and children Michael (deceased), David, Daniel, and Karen.

Frances’ ashes will be scattered around the family’s oak tree, joining her husband and two sons.

Arrangements were with the Connell, Dow & Deysenroth Funeral Home in Cooperstown.