HARPSWELL — Gertrude L. Knight, 88, died June 24 at Mid Coast Hospital with her granddaughter, Rachael, by her side.

Knight was the daughter of Margaret Anna (Fitzgerald) Barnes and William Stover Barnes. She was born in the same house as her father and grandmother in North Harpswell on Sept. 23, 1924.

A lifelong Harpswell resident, she attended the North Harpswell School and graduated from Brunswick High School, class of 1943. She married William R. Knight on Oct. 14, 1944. He died in 1996.

The Knights loved to travel. They drove with a camper, and told friends they had been from Newfoundland to the Yucatan Peninsula and from Key West to Point Barrow, Alaska. They also visited Moscow, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Athens, Rome, Giza and many other destinations. They even safaried in Kenya.

Knight was employed in the welding department of Bath Iron Works during World War II. When the U.S. Postal Service introduced the “Rosie the Riveter” postage stamp in 1999, she and nearly 100 other women who had worked in that trade during the war were invited to the unveiling of the new stamp in Portland.

In the early 1960s, Knight applied for the job of a substitute mail carrier, but was told it was no work for a woman. She argued that it could be no more difficult than bearing five children, and got the job. She also held other positions in the Postal Service, but loved her work as a mail carrier most of all. She delivered the mail throughout West Harpswell for 15 years.

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Knight also served as a poll worker, from the 1950s until just a few years ago. She loved the job because she was able to reconnect with many of the people for whom she had delivered mail through the years.

She was predeceased by a daughter, Margaret Knight; two sisters, Dorothy LeMay and Esther Lumsten; and a granddaughter, Ellen Camp.

She is survived by two daughters, Rose Marie Knight, and her partner, Vic Goodson, and Jean L. Camp, and her husband, Richard, all of Midland, Texas; two sons, James W. Knight, and his wife, Rosalind, and Roy A. Knight and his wife, Debra, all of Harpswell; a sister, Virginia Wright of Harpswell; 13 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Visiting hours were held Wednesday at Brackett Funeral Home, 29 Federal St., Brunswick. A funeral service will be held at 2 p.m. Friday, July 5, at the funeral home. Interment will be in West Harpswell Cemetery.

Condolences to the family may be posted and a tribute to Knight’s life viewed at brackettfuneralhome.com.

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