Anthea Gail Coster
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Published in June 2025
Anthea Coster, extraordinary wife of Jeremy for almost 52 years, died peaceably at her home in Holliston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on June 7th 2025, surrounded by her family. She was preceded in death by an older sister, Lynda, and her father Owen Harris and mother Doris. Anthea was 72 years old.
Born in Beaconsfield, UK, Anthea grew up in the High Wycombe area and went to Wycombe High School for Girls. Always charting her own course, and being nicknamed “Harry” for playing mostly with the neighborhood boys, she wore her hair so short that she was often mistaken FOR a boy, including once in the “girls first” line at the sweet (“candy”, for you Americans) shop near the school. An early sign of empathy skills was the fact that she chose to befriend the left-out kids, the ones teased for a disability or for being from a foreign country. She became a good horse rider and something of a horse whisperer, becoming known as the person given all the difficult horses to ride. She met Jeremy when he was at a party given by her cousin, and went home to tell her mum, “I met someone called Jeremy, and I’m going to marry him!”. Romance developed when the cousin persuaded Jeremy to come horse riding at the same stables as Anthea just happened to frequent. (Jeremy’s riding skills did NOT develop). Some 18 months later, she sealed the deal by proposing TO him on Valentines’ Day, and then they got engaged on April Fool’s Day. Forever unorthodox, and in pursuit of her father’s profession, she went to an accountancy college in London, where she found herself the only girl in a class of some 200.
With Jeremy’s job taking him to Teesside and then back to Welwyn Garden City, Anthea found work where she could. This entailed negotiating her way into local accountancy firms, with the proposal that she had to be allowed to take the audit materials home so that she could multitask raising two boys. Education being a touchstone of both sides of the family, she also decided to extend her left-school-at-16 education with the Open University, and enrolled in distance learning.
Then came the day that Jeremy came home with a proposal that he take an offered job in a foreign country, but she should guess where: the clues were “They speak English”, and “It is warm there”. Thus began a 4 year trip to South Africa, living in Sasolburg near Johannesburg, then in Durban, and finally near Empangeni on the Natal north coast. There, Anthea was a scout leader, pretending not to be afraid of snakes while camping with the pack, and becoming a qualified Natal Swim Coach, teaching drown-proofing to babies and toddlers.
When one of her boys needed hospital treatment, she insisted on sleeping in his room despite what “the rules” said. She also helped a band of other “corporate wives” with the African Children’s Feeding Scheme. AND she continued to climb the education ladder, sending essays and assignments back to the UK for marking.
After 4 years abroad, the home country called. Once back in Britain, the two boys entered grammar school, and Anthea finally gained her Open University BA Hons degree. She felt that “We’re settled!”, and for 5 years she was! … until Jeremy came home with a job offer based in Denver, Colorado. Off he went, leaving Anthea to sell the house and cars – but promising not to buy a house in Colorado until she got there.
To take the sting out of the broken promise to not buy a house before she arrived, there was a red sports car – with delivery mileage only – waiting for her in the driveway. As Jeremy’s work permit status prevented the ever-dutiful (if rebellious) Corporate Wife from working, Anthea sought volunteer work in the local schools. Once eligible to apply for citizenship, the family swotted up the civics test, and gained the coveted certificates in 2001. But Anthea was still studying, becoming a Licensed Professional Counselor in 2002 and then earning a PhD (Magna Cum Laude) in Psychology, via distance learning, in 2004.
Working in a local Family and Attachment Therapy practice, lots of different children (and quite a few troubled mums and dads) passed through her office, becoming happier in the process. Many times Suki, her English Springer Spaniel, helped “break through” a child’s trauma. Some of the clients proved interesting: there was the vet who had an actual bazooka in the trunk of his vehicle; and there was an army sergeant psychologist to whom Anthea wrote regularly throughout 3 tours of deployment to Iraq. Ever a soft touch for extra work,
Anthea ALSO kept the practice’s accounting books, and regularly had to remind her boss to keep receipts for tax purposes and to pay the rent in a timely fashion. (Jeremy used to joke that, between accountancy and psychology, he could not win against his wife).
The Denver years spun by, with the two boys routinely flying back to the UK for schooling, and then for university. One of them thus acquired the useful life skill of being able to fall asleep on airplanes. Sometimes mum traveled back to see them at half-term, leaving dad with the house and the animals. He lost points big time when, one midsummer night, her cat got out of an open window and into the Rocky Mountain night, never to be seen again.
Reaching retirement age, and with both boys developing their professional careers but on opposite USA coasts, grandmother duties called! So Anthea finally bowed out of paid therapy work, and she and Jeremy moved to be nearer the one who had the children. Thus Anthea arrived in Massachusetts.
With time at home, Anthea was able to resurrect her needlework interests, making a good number of diaper holders, each of which she started fabricating as soon as she learned of a friend or acquaintance being pregnant. Three times a week she would go to the gym, wearing tee shirts themed to her music for the day: Bee Gees on Mondays, Beatles on Wednesday and Elvis on Fridays. Additional pastimes were walking in the woods with other local ladies, and assembling any number of Lego models. Priority activities of course were the visits to the grand-kids – and sometimes boarding the grand-dogs and -cats while her East Coast son and family went on vacation.
The good times slowly came to an end, however, as Anthea developed a dementia and some compromised musculature. She reluctantly stopped driving, and then stopped going to the gym. With increasing disabilities, she was entered into hospice care at home. Her appetite and thirst simply disappeared, and a month later she died in her sleep.
Anthea is survived by her husband, Jeremy, and by her two sons and two grandsons. We remember her lovingly.
Visitation will take place on Saturday, July 12th from 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. at Chesmore Funeral Home of Holliston, 854 Washington St. A memorial program will follow at 11:00 a.m. in the funeral home. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to ALS, CCALS.org/donate.