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Margaret Vatter, 52, Westchester Native

Westchester County native Maggie Harding Vatter, formerly of Cornwall, died following a long illness on Thursday, Sept. 28, in Providence, R.I. She was 52.

Maggie Harding Vatter, 52

Maggie Harding Vatter, 52

Photo Credit: Quigley Brothers Funeral Home

The daughter of Patrick Joseph Harding and the late Maurie Panzer Harding, Vatter was born at St. John’s Hospital in Yonkers on Oct. 29, 1964. 

Vatter grew up on Jackson Avenue in New Windsor, with her siblings, Mary Harding Kramer, the late Patrick Kevin Harding, the late Timothy Gerard Harding, and the late Kathleen Ann Harding. She attended Cornwall schools where her sparkling personality won her many devoted friends. Mag graduated from Cornwall in 1982. 

She, like her brothers, was an excellent athlete, playing soccer, volleyball, and softball. She was an outstanding long distance runner and she was enthusiastically learning to play golf.

Vatter graduated from St. Michael’s College in Winooski, Vt., in 1986 with a bachelor's degree in elementary education. She had been a star player for the Purple Knight soccer and volleyball teams, and, again, a popular, vivacious, funny and feisty friend to many. 

After college, Vatter made a solo trip to Ireland, where she lived in a hostel in Dublin and worked at the Shelburne Hotel for six months.

She met Rob Vatter at the Cornwall Firemen’s Fair in August of 1981. They fell in love and wed in July of 1992 at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz. The couple lived together first in Darien and Norwalk, CT, Succasunna, N.J., and then Barrington, R.I., where they spent 19 years in Adelaide and at their neighborhood beach on the Narragansett Bay. 

Vatter was an active member of her craft group and the Rhode Island Country Club and was always surrounded by her crazy dogs, Dakota, Oliver, Cooper, and Riley.

She was the mother of five children: Emily Madden, Colin Anderson, Drew Patrick, Graham Harding, and Gillian Byrnes. In addition to her father, Patrick, her husband, Robert, and her sister, Mary, Maggie is survived by her sisters-in-law, Denise Coleman Harding and Robin Paley Harding, her brothers-in-law Michael (Roselle) and Doug (Margaret) Vatter, and Sean, Ryan, Keri, Andy, Katie, Thomas, Amelia, Sophia, Owen, and Keegan.

Services have already taken place.

Memorial Contributions in the name of Maggie Harding Vatter may be made to the Philip Hulitar Inpatient Center/Hope Hospice and Palliative Care at 1085 North Main St., Providence, RI 02904.

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