SANFORD — Helen Thayer Garnsey, 95, died on Friday, March 8, 2013 at the Newton Center in Sanford.

She was born in Portland on March 31, 1917, the eldest child of six children born to Florence V. Thayer and Edward R. Thayer. The family moved to Sanford in 1920, where she was raised and graduated from Sanford High School in 1935. She married Fred A. Garnsey in 1943 at the historic Brick Circular Congregational Church in Charleston, S.C.

She had been employed as a junior claims adjuster for the Liberty Mutual Insurance Company in Boston, Mass. Upon returning to Sanford, she assisted her husband Fred A. Garnsey in the operation of the Garnsey Brothers Insurance Company. She also had assisted her father Edward R. Thayer in the operation of the former Thayer-Diggery Clothing Store in Sanford. She was also a former co-owner of a ladies boutique in Perkins Cove in Ogunquit.

She was a member of the North Parish Congregational Church in Sanford. She had been a member of the former Ethelbert Nevin Music Club, the Goodall Hospital Auxiliary, Women’s Fellowship of the North Parish Congregational Church, the Ogunquit Women’s Club, a member and volunteer at the Goodall Hospital in Sanford, a member and volunteer at the Southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford, and assisted in the children’s reading program at the Dyer Library in Saco.

She was predeceased by her husband Fred A. Garnsey in 1969; her daughter, Kristen G. Cote in 1994; her brothers Edwin M. Thayer in 1962, Wendell B. Thayer in 1985 and George S. Thayer in 1977; her sister Marion Houghton; as well as her parents, Florence V. Thayer and Edward R. Thayer.

She is survived by her son Thomas W. Garnsey, Sr. of Springvale; her four grandchildren including Laurie Chadwick of Sebago; her sister, Virginia T. Lovejoy of Sanford; and six great-grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held at a later date.

Arrangements are under the direction of Black Funeral Homes & Cremation Service, Sanford-Springvale. Condolences can be expressed at www.blackfuneralhomes.com

Those planning an expression of sympathy are asked to consider: The American Cancer Society, 1 Bowdoin Mill Island, Suite 300, Topsham, ME 04086 or Visiting Nurses of Southern Maine, 15 Industrial Park Road, Saco, ME 04072.