AUGUSTA- Phyllis Ellen (Noble) (Daley) Tessman, 97, passed away on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023.

Phyllis was born in Gardiner on July 15, 1926. She is the daughter of the late Milo and Louise (Martin) Noble. Phyllis attended a one-room school in Sidney, Maine, was the youngest member of Cony High School’s graduating class of 1943, and graduated from Gates Business School.

Still a teenager, Phyllis travelled by train to Washington, D.C., to work for the U.S. Government during the last part of World War II. She was living in Washington when FDR passed away, and she remembered seeing President Truman taking his morning constitutional along Pennsylvania Avenue.

Phyllis married Dan Daley in 1946 and spent her early married life in Massachusetts and later in New Hampshire. Together Phyllis and Dan raised four daughters, Barbara, Bett, Penny, and Peggy. When “the girls” were old enough to start school, she returned to the workforce as a secretary and later became the first female clerk to work in a liquor store in New Hampshire.

In 1968, Phyllis and Dan moved back to their beloved Maine. Phyllis worked for 18 years as a medical secretary for Drs. Mohler, Smith, and Darlington in Augusta. She was a whiz at spelling medical terms, and she earned the nickname of “Doctor Daley.”

Phyllis is a long time member of the Emmanuel Lutheran Episcopal Church.

A few years after Dan’s death, Phyllis married Oscar Michael Tessman, acquiring two step-daughters, Sharon and Ginny, and she moved to Hartland to live on his one hundred forty acre farm. She and Michael stayed active golfing, cross-country skiing, camping, boating, and fishing. Phyllis loved people and was happiest telling stories and making new friends. An exceptional mom and nana, she never forgot a birthday or anniversary and was the matriarch of a family that has grown to five generations.

Phyllis is survived by her daughters Barbara Robidoux and her husband Richard, Bett Daley and her husband Michael Crotto, and Peggy Conway and her husband Franklin, her brother Martin Noble, her stepdaughters Sharon Sekellick and her husband Ron and Virginia Benning. She is also survived by her grandchildren Heather Madore, Shawn Daley, Tatiana Lovechenko, Meagan Maganti, Timothy Hamilton, Jimmy Demmons, Charles Robidoux, Kelly Knight, Shawn Potter, Gerald Demmons, Michael Daley-Crotto, and her step-granddaughters Melany Benning and Dawn Attardo, great grandchildren, great-great grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.

Phyllis is predeceased by her first husband, Daniel F. Daley, Jr., her daughter Penny Daley, her second husband Oscar Michael Tessman, and her grandson Christopher Daley.

Phyllis’s family gives its sincere gratitude to all the staff at the Maine Veterans’ Home for their exceptional care and for the love they showed her.

Phyllis’s visiting hours will be in the Knowlton and Hewins Funeral Home, One Church Street, Augusta on Monday, August 7, 2023, from 4-6 p.m. Her funeral service will be in Emmanuel Lutheran Episcopal Church, 209 Eastern Avenue, Augusta on Tuesday, August 8, 2023, at 11 a.m. Burial will be in the Maine Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery, 143 Blue Star Avenue, Augusta, Maine at 2 p.m. Relatives and friends are respectfully invited.

Arrangements are in the care of the Knowlton and Hewins Funeral Home, 1 Church Street, Augusta where condolences and memories may be shared with the family on the obituary page of the funeral home website by visiting http://www.khrfuneralhomes.com.