Bea Ginga

Bea Ginga died peacefully at her home in Southborough on 12 October 2026, at the age of 93, surrounded by those who loved her. The date would have been her 63rd wedding anniversary. News of her death spread on social media the same day and was confirmed by her niece the next morning. No cause of death was made public.

Visiting hours were set for 22 October 2026 at the Morris-Johnston Funeral Home, with a funeral Mass on 23 October at St. Matthew Church and burial at Southborough Rural Cemetery. Her family asked for donations to the Southborough Village Society or the Southborough Senior Center, and encouraged people to honour her by volunteering in their own communities.

Bertha Misener was born on 20 August 1933 and grew up in Southborough, Massachusetts, the town where she would spend her whole life. Her parents were Lawrence and Hilda Misener. She was one of a large family; her siblings included Catherine Kane, Mary Dion, John Misener, Peggy Bateman, Dorothy Santella and Josephine Williams.

Her father worked as the custodian of the Southborough Community House on Main Street, and when she was young he would bring her along to help clean the building. That early link to the house shaped the rest of her life.

After she and her husband moved into the Community House as its caretakers, she looked after the building for about 55 to 60 years. The house, built in 1906, had been given to the newly formed Southborough Village Society in 1922 to serve the town and support veterans after the First World War. For decades she also helped run the Village Society, the nonprofit that maintains the house for weddings, teas, meetings and town events. She helped with the annual Easter egg hunt and the arrival of Santa Claus by helicopter, and made a point of making every child feel special. "I love the place. I love the people that use the place," she told the Community Advocate in 2022.

For many years she was also a familiar face at "the Spa," the downtown gathering place where families stopped for breakfast, lunch and conversation. She kept calling it by that name long after it became Mauro's Village Café.

A breast cancer survivor, she helped put on the Northborough and Southborough Relay for Life at Algonquin Regional High School for the American Cancer Society. She was an active member of and advocate for the town's senior community, volunteered at the Senior Center, delivered meals to families in need through the Care Giver programme, worked with local Boy Scouts and helped honour veterans at annual events. She was a well known supporter of the police and fire departments.

In 2024, at the age of 90, she stood for an elected seat on the Southborough Housing Authority. She won and received more votes than any other candidate on the town ballot that year.

She married Henry "Doc" Ginga on 12 October 1963. They lived at and cared for the Community House together, and he died before her.

Her lifelong companion was Betty Minnucci of Southborough. Her family described their bond, built over decades of friendship, love and laughter, as one of the great constants of her life. Friends remembered her loyalty, generosity and humour, her quick quips and her hugs, and said she was happiest in comfortable clothes, surrounded by people she loved.

In June 2019 she was one of 132 women honoured at the Massachusetts State House as Unsung Heroines by the Commission on the Status of Women, and the seventh from Southborough. In October 2022 she was grand marshal of the town's Heritage Day parade, timed for the centenary of the Village Society's ownership of the Community House.

Her obituary said her legacy lives on in the generations of families who knew her and the children she made feel important, and that Southborough will never have another Bea.