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Mary Sottery and her brother John Laggis take a break on their bicycle trek from Boston to Provincetown, Mass., in 1945. She was “one in a million,” those who knew her said.

PASSAGES

Each day the newsroom selects one obituary and seeks to learn more about the life of a person who has lived and worked in Maine. We look for a person who has made a mark on the community or the person's family and friends in lasting ways.

PORTLAND — She respected the past, devoted her spare time to improving her community and state, and welcomed in a new generation of residents to Maine.

Mary Laggis Sottery died Tuesday at her home in Portland, where she and her husband, Ted, lived for the past 48 years.

She was 82 years old.

"Everyone loved her," said her daughter Ellen McCarty of Falmouth. "She has been described by several people as being 'one in a million.'"

Mrs. Sottery was born in Nashua, N.H., the daughter of Greek immigrants.

She grew up in Ayer, Mass., and graduated from Clark University in Worcester in 1948 with a degree in geography.

Her parents were proud of her because she was the first person in her family to attend college.

Mrs. Sottery was hired to teach geography at the Brearley School, an all-girls school in Manhattan. Her students included the children of such celebrities as the cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead, composer Irving Berlin and politician-philanthropist Nelson Rockefeller.

She and her husband lived in New York City for two years before moving to California. They moved in the late 1950s to Orono, where her husband took a job teaching chemistry. He also pursued his Ph.D. at the University of Maine.

During their stay in Orono, Mrs. Sottery heard about a fire engine that town officials were trying to sell. Worried that the 1917 engine might be scrapped, she put in a bid of $168 and was given title to the engine.

"My father said to my mother, 'What are you going to do with a fire engine?'" McCarty recalled.

Mrs. Sottery and her family drove the fire engine in parades.

It also came in handy.

During a visit to a friend's house in South Freeport, they used it to extinguish a brush fire that had gotten out of control.

In the 1990s, Mrs. Sottery donated the fire engine to the Old Town Fire Department, which the family learned two weeks ago had completely restored the truck.

In 1961, the couple moved to Portland, where Ted Sottery accepted a post as a full professor at the University of Southern Maine.

Her passion for protecting old objects was re-ignited when she led a campaign to preserve a historic barn, which was being used at the time as the university's gym.

She persuaded officials to put the barn on the National Register of Historic Places, but university officials refused to change their position.

Though Mrs. Sottery and members of the "Save the Barn" campaign tried to prevent its destruction by standing in front of the wrecking ball, the barn was demolished.

Mrs. Sottery grew into her role as an activist, working for causes that she believed would improve her community and her adopted state.

In the early 1970s, she was elected to the Portland School Committee. She made a point of visiting every school in the city, including Cliff Island.

Mrs. Sottery, who was named School Committee chair, participated in the dedication of the Reiche School, and her name appears on the plaque commemorating the opening of the Riverton School.

McCarty, who is Deering High School's librarian, said, "Everyone (in the school department) remembers my mother."

Then-Gov. James Longley appointed Mrs. Sottery in the mid-1970s to serve on the state Board of Environmental Protection. She became an expert on aquifers.

In 1976, she led a successful citizens' campaign in Portland to prevent a large trash baler from operating in the city's Libbytown neighborhood.

Her selfless nature was never more evident, her daughter said, than when she reached out to help integrate a family of Afghan immigrants into the Portland community.

The parents, who did not speak English, brought 11 children with them to Maine.

Mrs. Sottery collected clothing for the family, took them on outings to the beach and apple picking, and helped them learn...