Hannah Carter Sprague

SCARBOROUGH – Hannah Carter Sprague, 67, of Scarborough, danced her last dance at home on July 7, 2021, under the loving care of her family. She died as she lived, shining in the center of the action, after a year-long battle with cancer that she faced with grace and a smile.

Hannah grew up in Scarborough, graduating from Scarborough High School in 1972. She raised her two children in a Buxton home that was filled with love, laughter, and sarcasm, dodging balled up sock projectiles that were the standard punishment for “resting her eyes” in front of the TV. She never missed a moment with her kids and attended every recital and every game. While she rarely knew who won the game, she was always a fan of the team’s “outfits.”

Hannah loved spending summers at the family camp on the Crooked River in Casco, helping us convince ourselves that the water was really quite warm. Grammy would get up early with her grandchildren every morning at camp, giving tired parents a welcome chance to sleep in. The kids would have a warm fire and pancakes and regale her with the stories of whatever movie or video they had most recently watched. We spent hours planning our wraparound porch, Japanese bridge across the lagoon, and the ever-elusive upstairs bathroom. She and her sister, Pam, inherited the camp from their mother, Glenna, and started to make those dreams a reality in the Spring and Summer of 2021. While she will not get to enjoy the fruits of those investments on this physical plane, the generations she leaves behind will honor her every summer.

She retired in 2020 after a 20-year career at R.M. Davis where she was affectionately known as the “mayor of Portland” as she always seemed to know someone everywhere she turned.

Mom was the life of any party and the glue that kept our extended family together. She always could turn any topic into a song and was famous for an off-color joke at family gatherings. One of her favorite pastimes was going out dancing with her life partner, Paul de la Rosa, and their large group of friends. She was at the forefront of the dancing at any event and loved to learn a dance that her granddaughter shared with her from TikTok.

In 2019, Hannah returned to her childhood home on Pine Point Road in Scarborough with Paul, and we looked forward to many years of Christmas Eve traditions. Alas, while our time is cut short, the love that she added to our lives was not.

Hannah is preceded in death by her parents, Bradford and Glenna (Storey) Carter.

Hannah is survived by her daughter, Kelly (Sprague) Atkinson, her husband Mark, and their children Kayla and Ian; her son, Bradford Sprague, his wife Jamie, and their children Carter and Jack; her life partner, Paul de la Rosa and his daughter, Toni Baker and her husband Dylan and son Frederick, and his son, Richard and his wife Ciara and daughters Gwendolyn, Lorelei, and Phoebe; her sister, Pamela Hagstrom and her husband Walter, son Walter and his wife Abby and their children Wyatt and Elin, son Andrew and his wife Melissa and their children Hart and Ford; her sister, Joan Whitten and her husband Jim.

A reception will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, August 8, at Hobbs Funeral Home in Scarborough. Remarks will be given at roughly 2:30 p.m. and friends and family will be welcome to share memories of Hannah.

Hannah’s children wish to extend our sincere thanks to Paul and Pam for their extraordinary care and compassion for our mother over the last several weeks of her life.

Online condolences may be expressed at http://www.hobbsfuneralhome.com.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be given to Hospice of Southern Maine or The Barbara Bush Children Hospital.