Leesburg, FL, Florida - Claudette Marie Bartley, born Claudette Marie Levesque, 89, passed away peacefully December 17, 2025. She was born November 8, 1936, in Van Buren.

A devoted Catholic, Claudette worked for many years as a hairdresser, a profession she loved, forming lifelong friendships with her clients. A 1955 graduate of Sacred Heart School in Van Buren, she pursued hairstyling, studying in Boston and Quebec City before beginning her career in Boston and later Brooklyn, NY, where she graduated from the Vidal Sassoon Hair Stylist School in 1959. Following her former husbands' careers, she lived and worked in Greensboro, NC, Los Angeles, and Houston. She returned to Maine in the 1970s and continued her career in Van Buren, Bangor, and Hampden, before retiring to Bowerbank. She later moved to The Villages, FL, in 2011, and to Lake Port Square in Leesburg, FL, in 2023. She enjoyed quilting, art, and gourmet cooking and volunteered for several years at St. Theresa's Thrift Shop in Belleview, FL.

She is survived by her daughters, Leanne Kimball and Paula Bess Gumbert (Joe); stepdaughter, Joni Marsico (Keith); sister, Geralda Cyr (Roger); sisters-in-law, Betty Levesque, Sandra Bartley, and Sue Bartley; grandsons, Dylan and Austin Bess; great-grandsons, Bostyn and Klayton Bess; and many nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her former husbands, Frank Kimball and Hale Bartley; parents, Claude and Anita (Parent) Levesque; brother, Noble Levesque; and sisters, Hilda Daigle and Herma Johnson.

A Catholic Mass will be celebrated January 24 at 10 a.m. at St. Paul Catholic Church, 1330 Sunshine Ave., Leesburg, FL. Graveside burial will take place in Van Buren in summer 2026.

"Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live.'" - John 11:25