BELCHERTOWN — Wherever she went, Margaret F. Kemp was a regular.
Less than a week after Kemp, 65, died after being hit by a car, those who were part of her steadfast routine recall the woman who had become part of their routine.
The Belchertown McDonald’s manager Samantha Santor said Kemp would stop in multiple times a day to get some coffee, grab a bite to eat and use the phone.
Since her passing, mornings have been different for Santor.
“It’s been quiet,” she said.
Everywhere Kemp went she brought a fluffy orange cat named Stormy Pumpkin with her.
“She really loved her cat. It was her best friend,” Santor said. “She’d bring her cat everywhere with her.”
Stormy Pumpkin was stolen from outside of CVS Pharmacy a few months before Kemp died. Kemp had left her shopping cart — the one she walked around town with — outside the store and when she came out, it was gone, said Diane Morgan, the outreach and social services coordinator at the Belchertown Senior Center.
Kemp was struck and killed at the intersection of Routes 9 and 202 just before 11:30 p.m. Aug. 17, when a vehicle traveling east on Route 9 made a right turn onto Route 202 and hit the 65-year-old.
Everyone who spoke of Kemp said she often kept to herself. Even so, she made a lasting impact on the community — more than 2,150 people have donated nearly $7,000 to a GoFundMe page to help cover burial costs and pay for a memorial bench to be placed on the town common.
“Everyone that lived in Belchertown knew Margaret, but none of us really knew her. She has been a fixture for as long as I can remember,” Susan Shea wrote on the fundraising page. Shea is the Belchertown Senior Center programs and volunteer coordinator.
“There was not a day that went by that you didn’t see her about town pushing her cart with her cat Stormy Pumpkin in it.”
Two people who identified themselves as fellow Route 45 bus riders also paid tribute to Kemp and donated funds to help.
“I figured someone needed to champion for her,” Shea said Wednesday. “Margaret was a fixture in this community for so many years. I thought something should be done.”
Kemp’s birthday is in November and Shea said they may possibly hold a memorial at that point.
“She had no one in her life that championed more for her than my co-worker Diane Morgan,” Shea wrote.
The Senior Center’s outreach and social services coordinator said Kemp would call her daily, even on the weekends.
At the Amherst Survival Center, it was rare a day would pass without Kemp stopping in. The center’s program director, Tracey Levy, said Kemp was usually one of the first people through the door and would spend a couple of hours there.
“In the last few days she has been very much missed,” Levy said. “She didn’t interact with a whole lot of people but her presence was very much felt.”
Kemp had been a regular at the community center for at least a decade, Levy said. She’d grab a doughnut, a cup of coffee and check the books at the free thrift store, Levy said.
“The wonderful thing about this community here — people understand that even if it’s somebody who appeared to mostly be alone, they were very much a part of the fabric,” Levy said.
The center’s volunteer coordinator, Carleen Basler, said through her daily interactions, she got to know a different side of Kemp.
“I helped her learn how to facilitate her phone. When she was somewhat agitated with people, I got to see a very soft side of her,” Balser said.
She helped Kemp learn to use her phone and send faxes daily to take care of her business.
“She was very clever, really amenable to learning how to do new technologies that were very challenging,” Balser said. “She was very patient because she needed to get some stuff done every day.”
Basler had been away for five weeks and came back after Kemp had been killed.
“I’m coming back into an absence of Margaret and it’s really sad,” she said. “There is a definite absence with Margaret not being here and I will miss her very much.”
“She was part of my workday every day,” Basler said as she choked up. “I think she was unique and I wish I had the opportunity to know her better.”
The fundraising campaign for Kemp can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/margaret-kemp-memorial.
Emily Cutts can be reached at ecutts@gazettenet.com.