Sophie Alukonis

On Thursday, September 18th, 2025, just five days prior to what would have been her 97th birthday, our cherished matriarch, mom, auntie, grandma, and best friend, Sophie Alukonis left us to commence her final journey. Born on September 23rd, 1928 in Hudson, New Hampshire to Boleslaw and Katherine Batura, Sophie was the youngest, and last survivor of eight siblings—Anna, Jennie, Stanley, Joseph, Mary, John, and Helen. Being born into a family of that size during the Great Depression, she was raised to understand the need to be frugal and independent. From an early age she tended to the vegetable garden, maintained the orchard, fished in the ponds and brooks of Hudson and along the shores of the Merrimack River and in the fall, she would join her brothers on their hunting expeditions. From her mother she learned how to milk the family cow, care for the chickens, and cook for and feed the large family on a shoestring budget. From her father, she learned how to care for and heal the family’s livestock. Additionally, to help her cherished family, while still a young teenager, she became a most proficient and accomplished seamstress. In her spare time, whenever that may have been, she played basketball for Nashua High School and took home first place prizes for numerous other athletic events. Shortly after graduating from Nashua High School (as Hudson did not have a high school at the time), and after a brief stint at the St. Joseph School of Nursing in Nashua, Sophie traveled across the country with friends to seek out new experiences and places. For a while she lived in San Francisco employing her skills as a seamstress while working at Levi Strauss & Company until the 3,000-mile divide became too great, and the call of friends and family beckoned her back to her hometown. Sophie married fellow Hudson native Stanley Alukonis in the days before Christmas in 1950 when he was home on leave from his duties as a United States Air Force bomber pilot. Thereafter, she accompanied Stanley around the country as he was stationed at bases in Texas, Oklahoma, and in Arizona. It was in Tucson that she learned to cook true Mexican specialties such as chili relleno, enchiladas and carne asada. It was there too, at the historic San Xavier del bac Mission on what is the Tohono O’odham Nation that she learned how to make traditional fry bread and Indian tacos from native American women that would cook over open wood fires just outside the centuries-old church. Weekends were spent camping and fishing on the beaches of Rocky Point (Punta Peñasco) in Sonora, Mexico where Sophie would cook the catches of the day over an open beach fire for Stanley, as well as for other airmen and their families. And when those fly-boys partied a bit too hard, a pot of Menudo would be left by the fire as a hangover cure. It was in New Jersey, at Stanley’s last posting, that their only child, David, was born. Soon thereafter, Stanley (the Colonel) dispatched Sophie and infant David back to the Alukonis family farm in Hudson. There, they lived with Stanley’s parents until their new home was built, and Stanley retired from the Air Force. It was there, on “the farm” that Sophie lived for the remaining 63 years of her life. It was there that Sophie honed her talents and developed new ones. Hardly a day went by in all those years, regardless of rain, heat, or snow, that she didn’t take a long walk in her cherished woods, coming to know every square foot of the woods and fields and becoming a consummate naturalist. Accomplished cook, baker, gardener, seamstress, cookbook collector, farmer, craftsman, wildlife rehabilitator, arborist, canner, fisherman (on ice, in ponds and streams, and on the high seas), yard sale picker, forager of all things wild—berries, nuts, flowers, herbs, medicinals, mushrooms and of course, asparagus, and fan of Boston College Football; she was Martha Stewart before Martha Stewart was Martha Stewart. In 1999, Sophie welcomed Michele to the family fold, making the two-hour journey to Michele and David’s wedding at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in her tourquoise-teal 1959 Cadillac convertible. Eager to teach Michele many of her talents and knowledge, the two quickly developed a special bond and spent countless hours discussing her hobbies and family stories. But it was in 2003 that her most beloved and only grandchild was born. Seamus Sumner Alukonis was everything to her and hardly a day went by when she didn’t have a present or special treat for him. She loved traveling to his games and watching him play baseball and hockey and truly relished the task of cleaning his uniforms with her special and proprietary methods that left those uniforms with the whitest of whites and brightest of colors. Theirs was a special bond that only grew stronger after Stanley died in 2006. She will be missed. David, Michele, and Seamus Alukonis would like to thank the incredible nurses and staff at Home Health & Hospice Care who were so helpful, kind, and loving in helping keep Sophie comfortable at home until the very end. We would also like to thank our dear friends Sherri, and cousin Wende for helping us navigate the waters as we prepared her for her final journey. Godspeed Sophie! All services were private.

Sophie Alukonis

September 23, 1928 - September 18, 2025