BELGRADE LAKES – Juanita “Nita” C. Hollingsworth-Vautour, 76, of Belgrade Lakes passed away on June 3, 2023 at Androscoggin Home Healthcare and Hospice, in the presence of family, after losing her long battle with Alzheimer’s.

She was born in Durham, N.C. on June 15, 1946, daughter of William and Edith (Bowen) Pickering.

Besides her parents, Nita was predeceased by her brothers Ernie Pickering, Sidney Pickering, and her sister, Sue Pickering.

Nita grew up in Durham, N.C. As a child, Nita loved to work in her grandfather’s (Archie Lee Bowen) grocery store after school and attend Bull Durham baseball games, which Archie was a part owner of at the time. Nita graduated from Elwood Regional High School in Newfoundland, where her father was a Commander on Ernest Hermon Air Force Base.

After high school, Nita married and worked at raising three boys (Matt, Chris and Ben). After her husband had honorably fulfilled his military obligation, both enrolled at the University of Maine at Farmington. Even though all her college advisors and teachers tried to talk her out of it because, “she was too small to handle the students she would face,” Nita became the first woman to graduate with a degree in Special Education from UMF in the early ’70s. Little did UMF know how strong Nita was, as she spent the next 30 years working as a special education teacher and director in the State of Maine.

Although her first marriage did not last, family was the most important thing to Nita, and she never gave up, sometimes working two to three jobs at a time to raise her three rambunctious, rule breaking, not always law-abiding boys. The boys had no idea who they were up against though, their mother ensuring in the end that they all grew up to be mature, successful, and law-abiding men (at least two out of the three, anyways).

On April 16, 1998, Nita married Doyle Vautour and they spent the next 35 years inseparable from each other. Nita and Doyle went on numerous cross-country adventures, but always ended up back at their home on Long Pond.

Nita is survived by her husband, Doyle Vautour of Farmington; her three sons, Matthew Hollingsworth and wife Isabelle of Westwood, Mass., Chris Hollingsworth, and wife Jodi of Farmington, and Benjamin Hollingsworth and wife Candace of Copperas Cove, Texas. Nita is also survived by nine grandchildren, Tucker, Taylor, Cooper and Casey Hollingsworth of Farmington, Alexandra Cochran and Nicholas Hollingsworth of Copperas Cove, Texas, Autumn McIntire of Grovetown, Ga., and Alanna and Garson Hollingsworth of Westwood, Mass.; as well as two great-grandchildren, Amyas and Amara.

The family would like to thank Woodlands of Farmington and the Androscoggin Home Healthcare and Hospice for their kind, comforting and thoughtful care of Nita.

Cremation care has been provided by Dan and Scott’s Cremation and Funeral Services, 488 Farmington Falls Rd., Farmington, ME 04938.