Marcia Mary Medeiros’s last week began at her great-grandson’s first birthday party. The next day she was at a dinner party with her neighbors, and the day after that she was fishing. Then, on Sept. 7, 2023, she died suddenly at her home in North Truro. She was 85.
The only daughter of Anthony C. Russell and Conception Mary (Macara) Russell, Marcia was born on Dec. 23, 1937 in Provincetown, where she grew up. Her mother ran a boarding house on Commercial Street and her father ran a fishing boat called the Queen Mary.
Marcia was still a teenager when her mother died. She looked after her younger brother and managed the boarding house until it was sold. She graduated from Provincetown High School in 1955.
Soon after graduation, Marcia met William K. “Kenny” Medeiros, who worked at the A&P. They married on Sept. 15, 1958, and had two daughters, Stacey and Nancy. They were married for almost 50 years until Kenny’s death in 2005.
Marcia had a long career in the restaurant business, working at Bonnie Dune’s and then at a series of restaurants at 481 Route 6 in Truro — a building that successively housed the Rum Runner, Family Table, Captain Josie’s, and Montano’s.
She also worked at the Tides Motel and the Top Mast Resort. For a couple of summers in the early 1970s, she served as first mate on her uncle Edgar Francis’s boat Pinky. She drove a bus for a campground in North Truro.
Her last job was at Land’s End Marine Supply, which is owned by her brother, Craig Russell. She did not like to be idle and was 82 when she retired in 2020.
Marcia loved crafts. She learned ceramics, was skilled at needlework, rug hooking, and basket making, and could even cane chairs. She also loved holidays and baked Portuguese bolos de foilha (little pastry ribbons) and trutas (tarts with sweet potato filling) for Christmas.
She would gather beach plums and blueberries with her friend Jean Roberts. And her true love was the water, Stacy said, including fishing and clamming.
Kenny was a Korean War veteran, and in 1974 he reconnected with an old Army friend, Guy Bailey. Marcia and Kenny would host Guy and his wife, Rosie, during Cape Cod summers and then visit the couple in Iowa in the fall.
In the years after Kenny’s death, Marcia went on cruises with her brothers and cousins and bought her aunt’s condo in West Palm Beach, where she would spend a warm winter and spring.
Marcia is survived by her daughters, Stacey and husband Lee White and Nancy and husband Richard Gross, all of North Truro; brothers Norman Russell and wife Sherry of N.H. and Craig Russell and wife Candace of Provincetown; granddaughters Meagan White of Eastham, Kayla Imperial of Yarmouth, Amy White of Eastham, and Jessica White of Eastham; grandson William Gross of North Truro; and great-grandchildren Lenora Casper and Dawson Imperial. Marcia was looking forward to greeting her third great-grandchild.
She also leaves numerous nieces and nephews and her “double cousin” Naomi Rorro and husband Michael.
A private memorial was held on Sept. 11, 2023. In lieu of flowers, donations in Marcia’s name can be made to Truro Police and Rescue.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this obituary, published in print on Sept. 21, omitted survivor William Gross, Marcia Medeiros’s grandson, and misspelled the first name of her daughter Stacey.
