Sally (Bodge) Wadman, 87, died peacefully on April 20, 2020 after a short struggle with COVID-19. Sally was born on January 17, 1933 in Boston, MA to Willard and Ethel (Bruce) Bodge and grew up in the Newton village of Auburndale. Sally graduated from Newton High School in 1950 where she enjoyed participating in the theater program. She attended Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio where she graduated in 1954 with degrees in Biology, French and Speech, and she was a member of Theta Xu sorority. Sally worked at Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, ME before becoming a 5th grade teacher in nearby Bucksport and spent weekends in Bar Harbor where she started her first Girl Scout troop and sang in church choir. She returned to Massachusetts to earn a Master’s degree in Testing & Measurement at Boston University and then became a 5th- and 6th-grade teacher with Newton Public Schools. She married childhood neighbor Grosvenor McGraw Wadman in 1960, and they spent 53 years together going on camping trips and enjoying their favorite Boston sports teams. Grove’s work took them to Manchester, CT and then to Bolton where Sally continued to teach until they started a family. In 1968, Sally and family moved to Sudbury, MA where they resided for over 40 years. Her love of volunteering included leading Girl Scout Troop #958 for 15 years, publicity work for Goodnow Public Library and New England Norwegian Elkhound Society, election registration, tutoring at numerous Sudbury Public Schools and directing children’s theater productions at Memorial Congregational Church in Sudbury. She also spent many years helping residents make Swedish arts and crafts at the Scandinavian Living Center in West Newton, where she resided for five years before her brief stay at Stone Rehab & Senior Living at the end of her life.
Sally is survived by her four children: Erika Wadman of Auburndale, MA; Kristina (Wadman) Oswald of Collinsville, CT; Bruce Wadman (Shannon Westbrock) of Minneapolis, MN; and Sonja Wadman (John
Norton) of Auburndale, MA; and four grandchildren, April and Charlotte Oswald, and Ben and Martha Wadman. She was pre-deceased by her husband, Grove, in 2013.