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CONWAY - Alice H. Hardigg, a resident of Conway for nearly 50 years, died peacefully in her daughter's home Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011, surrounded by her family.

She was born Aug. 28, 1929, in New York City, where she attended the Chapin School. When her father joined the War Department in 1941, her family moved to Washington, D.C. She attended the Potomac School in MacLean, Va., and later Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Va. During the war years her family took in a number of European refugees to live in their family's summer home in Virginia, a farm in the Shenandoah Valley. At Bryn Mawr College she majored in English literature and was the captain of the fencing team.

A highlight of her college years was her attendance with her father, who was an advisor to Eleanor Roosevelt on the Declaration of Human Rights, at Mrs. Roosevelt's presentation of that document to the United Nations. During the years that her father worked for the Marshall Plan in Paris, Alice studied at the London School of Economics, where she completed a master's degree in political philosophy under the tutelage of Michael Oakeshott and wrote her dissertation on the political writings of John Milton.

She taught English at the Potomac School and later worked at the Coward McCann publishing company in the children's literature department. She met her future husband, James S. Hardigg, in Washington, D.C. They were married Oct. 20, 1956, in Millwood, Va. At the wedding reception on her family's farm, the sheep had white ribbons tied around their necks in honor of the festivities.

Alice and Jim initially lived on the North Shore of Massachusetts, where Jim had moved his fledgling engineering firm and their first child was born. When Jim decided to move Hardigg Industries to the Connecticut River Valley area, they lived in Hadley, where their next three children were born. In 1962 they moved to Conway, where they had three more children.

Alice was very fond of animals and oversaw the care of a small herd of Toggenburg goats, several Dartmoor ponies and an assortment of dogs. Alice, Jim and their children gathered hay for the goats from one of their fields, using the old-fashioned method of scythe, rake, pitchfork and hand-pulled wagon. At the reception following the marriage of one of her daughters, a number of guests noticed Alice pulling on a pair of boots and heading out to milk the goats in her formal attire.

On another occasion, when she was taking her goats to pasture, a television reporter showed up unannounced to interview her about her friendship with fellow Conway resident, Archibald MacLeish. Alice was wearing a red-and-black Scottish kilt that day, which was a fortuitous choice, as Mr. MacLeish generally wore a tartan bonnet on his trips to the post office.

She was glad to be a neighbor to the Allis family, at whose dairy farm she sometimes helped with the milking. She valued the preservation of agricultural land and would travel all the way to Virginia to attend town hall meetings to support efforts to maintain the rural nature of the land around her family's farm.

She formed many wonderful friendships with Conway residents. She was particularly fond of Arthur Germain, a stalwart individual who finished school at age 12 and never learned to drive a car, but who possessed impressive stores of wisdom. She was also devoted to the cheerful and resourceful Aili Clapp and to Frances Holden, a close neighbor to the Hardiggs. When Mrs. Holden became elderly, Alice took her meals several times a week.

Alice and three of her neighbors on Baptist Hill, Elise Rymer, Kathryn Butler and Aina Barten, formed a creative writing group, which was a source of great pleasure to her. Alice enjoyed walking down to the post office and circling back across the South River and past the Orchard Equipment Company, stopping to chat with acquaintances along the way.

She had a lifelong interest in music. She taught her children innumerable songs and was a member of Jack Ramey's choral music group at the Congregational Church. She was devoted to reading literature and was especially fond of re-reading novels by Charles Dickens, Willa Cather and Leo Tolstoy.

An avid student of foreign languages, she studied French throughout high school and German in college. When she was in her late 70s she took additional courses in German at Smith College and had begun to study Spanish during the last year of her life. She enjoyed reading novels in French, taking as much pleasure in the process of translation as in the unfolding of the story.

After her children had grown up, she worked in the Human Relations Department at Hardigg Industries. She became a warm and much appreciated presence in the company community. Her interest in business ethics and her background in writing enabled her to make considerable improvements to the company's personnel policy manual, and she wrote monthly newsletters that included recipes and profiles of associates.

How Alice was able to raise seven children on homemade bread, homegrown vegetables and goat's milk without ever raising her voice is a matter of grateful wonder to her surviving six children, Thea, Jamie, Jeanet, Viva, Arthur and Lorli; her nine grandchildren; her brother, Arthur Hendrick; and Jim, her husband of 55 happy years.

A great way to honor Alice would be to take a walk with a friend or plant a row of potatoes, but for those who wish to make a donation in her name, two institutions she valued highly were the Franklin Land Trust in Shelburne Falls and the Field Memorial Library in Conway.

A memorial service will be held at the United Congregational Church in Conway Sunday, Nov. 13, at 2 p.m. Please come ready to sing.